THE PICTURESQUE 

HUDSON 



CLIFTON JOHNSON 



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.4 Quiet Evening 



THE 

PICTURESQUE 

HUDSON 



WRITTEN AND 
ILLUSTRATED BY 
CLIFTON JOHNSON 



PICTURESQUE 
RIVER SERIES 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

New York iQog 
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LIMITED 



Copyright, jgog, 

by the MacmiUan Company. 



Published September, 1909. 



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THE PICTURESQUE 

HUDSON 



Electrotyped 

and 

Printed 

by The 

F. A. Bassette Company 

Springfield, Mass. 



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1909 


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THE PICTURESQUE 
HUDSON 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

HEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



Contents 

PAGE 

I. Some General Characteristics . I 

II. A Backlook .... 7 

III. River Traffic .... 27 

IV. Manhattan .... 40 
V. On the Jersey Shore . . 57 

VI. The Fish and the Fishermen . 72 

VII. The Tappan Sea ... 86 

VIII. The Land of Irving . . 100 

IX. Haverstrav^^ and Stony Point . 124 

X. The Highlands . . . 134 

XI. From Cornv^all to Kingston . 150 

XII. On the Borders of the Catskills . 170 

XIII. At the Head of Navigation . 183 

XIV. From Saratoga to the Source . 199 



Vll 



Illustrations 

A quiet evening .... Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Hudson at Fort Edward ... 3 

A stream in the Catskills .... 6 

On the Battery n 

Shipping at the Albany wharves ... 14 

The battle monument — ^Washington Heights 17 

Anthony's Nose as seen from Doodletown Bay 23 

The Northern Gateway of the Highlands . 26 

The Wharves at Poughkeepsie . . .32 

On a canal boat ..... 3^ 

A glimpse of the spire of Trinity Church . 43 

Riverside Park and the tomb of General Grant 48 

Fishing in Spuyten Duyvil Creek . . 55 

The giant buildings of lower Manhattan as seen 

from the Communipaw Ferry . . 5^ 
Looking toward New York from the site of the 

Burr-Hamilton duel .... 65 

A waterside dwelling , . . . . yi 

Shad fishermen starting out with their net . 74 



IX 



Illustrations 



A Colonial home at the foot of the Palisades 83 

The Tappan Sea at Irvington ... 94 

Croton River ...... 99 

"Sunnyside," the home of Washington Irving no 
The house in which Arnold and Andre met on 

"Treason Hill" 119 

The old Dutch church at Sleepy Hollo w^ . 122 

Some of the brickyards bordering Haverstraw 

Bay 129 

The view down the river from Stony Point 133 

The Dunderberg * . . . . .140 

The Battle Monument at West Point . . 144 

Storm King under a cloud cap . . .146 

The Fishkill 150 

The Poughkeepsie Bridge . . . -155 

John Burroughs at "Riverby" . . .159 

The Vassar Gate . . . . .162 

The lake at Vassar ..... 164 
The old Kingston Senate House . . .166 

Kaaterskill Clove . . . . .171 

The Rip Van Winkle hut and the Half-way 

House . . . . . ' ^Ti 

The oldest house in Hudson . . '175 

Albany 183 

Passing through the locks opposite Troy 186 

A glimpse of canal boat life . . .193 



Illustrations 



XI 



The falls on the Mohawk near its junction with 
the Hudson .... 

Saratoga's vernal business center . 

The site of Burgoyne's Surrender 

Glen's Falls 

Lake George from the old earthworks of Fort 
WilHam Henry .... 

A village on the borders of the Adirondacks 

A millpond among the hills 



198 
203 
208 
210 

215 
218 
223 



Introductory Note 

It is believed that the volumes in this Pic- 
turesque Rivers Series are sufficiently compre- 
hensive in their text to make them distinctly 
valuable as guide books; and at the same time 
they are compact enough in size not to be burden- 
some to those w^ho v^ish to carry them in trunk 
or bag. There is, of course, no attempt to give 
a detailed catalog of all the charms of any par- 
ticular stream, for that could only be done at a 
sacrifice of readableness. But the more striking 
features — picturesque, historic, literary, legend- 
ary — have received ample attention. A great 
variety of volumes more or less closely related 
to the story of each river has been consulted, 
and many fragments of fact and fancy have 
been culled from such sources and woven into the 
text of the present series; but there is also 
included much which is the result of personal 
observation, and of contact with chance ac- 
quaintances, who furnish to every traveller a 
great deal of the pleasure and human interest 
of any particular journey. 



The numerous pictures were all made espe- 
cially for these books with the intent of supplying 
an attractive summary of each stream's indiv- 
uality. All in all, the books, both in their 
literary and pictorial features, are of such a 
character that they should be of general interest 
and in a marked degree serviceable to w^hoever 
wishes to make a journey beside or on any of 
the rivers that find place in this series. 



The Picturesque Hudson 
I 

SOME GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

'' I ^HE springs and tiny rills that are the 
-*- source of the Hudson are among the 
central heights of the Adirondacks. Thence 
the gradually increasing waters flow south- 
ward, until at Fort Edward, one hundred 
and eighty miles from the mouth, they become 
a well-defined river. But the stream for thirty 
miles more is narrow, tortuous and rock- 
obstructed. Then, at Troy, it reaches tidewater, 
and for the rest of its course is essentially a long 
arm of the sea, broad, stately and slow and 
having not a little of the sea's austerity and 
grandeur. This portion of the river is remark- 
ably free from irregularities. It even lacks 
tributaries of any considerable size and as a 
whole presents a fine symmetrical shaft such as 
no other river in the world can match. 

The Hudson is a very large river considering 
the amount it carries to the sea, for its watershed 



2 The Picturesque Hudson 

is comparatively limited. In fact, the channel 
of the stream is, for most of the course, a huge 
trough with a very slight incline through which 
the current moves most leisurely. Its fall from 
Albany to New York Bay is only about five 
feet, and the ordinary progress of the water 
southward between these points is less than ten 
miles a day. Each of the two ebb tides in the 
twenty-four hours will carry a piece of drift- 
wood about a dozen miles down stream, but 
each of the flood tides carries it back two-thirds 
of that distance. So a drop of water is three 
weeks making the journey from Albany to the 
metropolis. 

Some rivers by the volume and force of their 
current penetrate the sea, but in the case of the 
Hudson the salt water invades the river channel 
and meets the fresh water from the mountains 
nearly half way. There was a time, however, 
when the river was more aggressive. Its great 
trough bears evidence of having been worn to 
its present dimensions by much swifter and 
mightier currents than now flow through it. 
Apparently, in the pre-glacial period, this por- 
tion of our continent was several hundred feet 
higher than at present, and the Hudson was the 
outlet of the Great Lakes, with which it was 




The Hudson at Fort Echvard 



Some General Characteristics 3 

connected by a channel that followed much the 
same course as does the Mohawk of today. 
At length the land subsided, and as a result of 
this and the changes wrought by a huge glacier 
that crept down from the north, we have the 
region as it now is. The valley of the Hudson 
was left partially filled with silt, and nowhere 
beneath the stream is the mud and clay appar- 
ently less than two or three times as deep as 
the water. 

That ancient and grander Hudson belongs to 
a period hundreds of thousands of years ago, 
but some of the river's guardian rocks and 
mountains are far older. The Highlands, for 
instance, date from the earliest geological era. 

The stream is navigable to Troy for large 
steamers and shipping, and is a great highway 
of travel and commerce. Vessels from all parts 
of our seaboard plough its waters. Opposite 
New York it is from fifty to seventy-five feet 
deep, and a good depth is maintained nearly 
to Tarrytown by the scouring force of the tides 
along the comparatively narrow channel at the 
foot of the Palisades. Beyond the Palisades, 
wherever the river is broad, there are usually 
extensive shallows reaching out from either 
shore so that long wharves or dredged ap- 



4 The Picturesque Hudson 

proaches to the landing stages are a necessity. 
The Federal Government has spent large sums 
in keeping the channel open, but it appears 
that even the channel of the lower river is con- 
stantly growling shallower. This is said to be 
due to the reckless scattering of vast quantities 
of refuse from barges and canal-boats, and the 
ashes from the numerous steamers. The 
principal offenders are the men who carry 
brick. When returning up the river they 
dump overboard, wherever convenient, the 
broken bricks rejected from the cargoes carried 
to New York. The brick barges make up a 
considerable proportion of the boats in the tows, 
and as an average of eight tows, each composed 
of from forty to eighty boats, pass up the Hudson 
daily, it is easy to realize that the refuse bricks 
thrown into the water must bulk very large. 
Not only are they a detriment in themselves, but 
they arrest much silt that would otherwise be 
carried out to sea. 

Such a river as the Hudson, with a length of 
over three hundred miles, nearly half of which 
is open to navigation for large vessels, is a great 
help to the adjacent region, and this noble water- 
way has had much to do with making New York 
the Empire State. 



Some General Characteristics ^ 

In winter nearly the whole extent of the river 
is closed by ice. North of the Highlands the 
closure is usually permanent during January 
and February, and navigation ceases toward 
the end of November. But the steam ferry- 
boats continue to run, crushing through the ice 
as it forms and keeping open a path for them- 
selves. Below the Highlands, in an average 
winter, the ice does not form from shore to 
shore, but drifts about in more or less compact 
floes that lodge here and there for limited 
periods. Yet sometimes the lower river is solidly 
ice-bound for weeks together, and even New 
York Bay has been frozen over. 

Ordinarily the ice goes out of the river in 
March, but never suddenly and tumultuously 
as in more rapid and fluctuating streams. It 
starts in a slow, deliberate movement of the 
whole body of ice. But a few hours suffice to 
break up the great ice-fields pretty thoroughly. 

About the time that the river begins to free 
itself from its winter fetters, and when its aspect 
is wildest, the eagles appear. They prowl 
about among the ice-floes, sometimes alighting 
on them, sometimes flapping along over the 
chilly water, looking for fish or other game. 
Where the eagles are, the crows congregate, and 



M' 



II 

A BACKLOOK 

OST people have the impression that the 
first European to see the river was Henry 
Hudson, whose name it bears; but as early as 
1524, the Florentine navigator, Verrazano, 
while coasting along the shore of the lately- 
discovered continent, entered the Bay of New 
York and ascended the Hudson for some dis- 
tance. He must have gone at least as far as the 
Palisades, for he describes the stream as ''The 
River of the Steep Hills." 

The next year the captain of a Spanish vessel 
took notice of the Hudson, and as time went on 
it was visited by French skippers, some of 
whom went up to the head of navigation to 
get furs from the Mohawks, and they built 
block-houses on Manhattan Island and at 
Albany. Wars at home, however, presently led 
to a cessation of French maritime enterprise, 
and the Hudson was not only abandoned but 
well-nigh forgotten. 



8 The Picturesque Hudson 

The man to whom the river owes its name 
was a citizen of London and a warm friend of 
Captain John Smith. He first won fame by a 
voyage into the Arctic regions seeking a route 
to China directly across the North Pole, and 
though he failed in his main purpose he 
penetrated the ice-fields farther than any of 
his predecessors. While wandering on the 
almost unexplored seas of that time he discovered 
various of those marvels, of which the ocean 
anciently had many, and among the rest re- 
ported having seen a mermaid. The upper 
portion of the creature resembled a woman, 
but when she dove out of view she tossed in 
the air a "tayle like the tayle of a porpoise, and 
speckled like a macrell." 

Wonders were expected, and when in 1609 he 
first saw the Hudson he did not recognize it as 
a river, but fancied that its broad salt-water 
channel might afford the short-cut to China for 
which he was searching. Hitherto he had sailed 
in English ships, but on this voyage he was in 
the employ of the Dutch, who as a nation were 
the most enterprising and intelligent sea rovers 
and traders of that period, and who owned more 
ships than all the rest of Europe put together. 
With his little vessel, the Half Moon, manned 



A Backlook 9 

by a crew of only eighteen sailors, he had again 
tried to push through the northern ice-fields. 
Failing in that he voyaged southward to New- 
foundland, and Cape Cod, and even as far as 
Virginia. Then he returned along the coast 
exploring it more closely until, early in Septem- 
ber, he sounded his way across Sandy Hook bar 
and anchored. Here he found an abundance 
of fish, and gazed with delight at the green 
pleasant shores adorned with "great and tall 
oaks." The savages in their canoes, made of 
single hollowed trees, paddled out to visit the 
vessel, though at first sight they had been sus- 
picious that the white-sailed ship was some 
strange sea-monster. They were clad in gar- 
ments of feathers, deerskin and furs, and carried 
bows accompanied by arrows which were 
pointed with sharp stones. One evening when 
a boat from the ship that had been a few miles 
to the north exploring was on its way back it 
was attacked by two canoes, containing twenty- 
six Indians, and a sailor was killed by an arrow. 
After a week's loitering below Staten Island, 
Hudson sailed into New York Bay and pro- 
ceeded on up the broad river enjoying the fra- 
grance of the wild grapes that came from the 
shores. The scene as he continued northward 



10 The Picturesque Hudson 

became one of impressive and sober beauty. 
On the right bank swept the verdure of an 
almost unbroken forest, while on the left rose 
the precipitous rocks of the Palisades, and in 
both directions stretched a land of unknown 
extent that was full of mysterious possibilities. 
Hudson sailed on until he was well past the 
Highlands and had reached the head of naviga- 
tion within sight of the Catskills. Meanwhile 
he had been trading with the savages for beans 
and oysters, Indian corn, pumpkins and tobacco. 
When he went ashore '*the swarthy natives all 
stood around and sang in their fashion." 
'*They appeared to be a friendly people," he 
says, but adds that they "have a great pro- 
pensity to steal, and are exceedingly adroit in 
carrying away whatever they fancy." 

Hudson sent a boat load of his men up the 
river, and they explored the narrowing stream 
to beyond the mouth of the Mohawk. On their 
return he reluctantly concluded that this route 
did not lead to China, a conclusion in harmony 
with that of Champlain who the same summer, 
and on the same quest, had been making his 
way from the St. Lawrence dov/n through the 
lake that bears his name and throuo-h Lake 
George. It was then a common belief that the 




On the Battery 



A Backlook ii 

continent in that latitude was not much wider 
than Central America. These old mariners 
never dreamed of the thousands of miles of 
solid continent ridged with vast mountain ranges 
that lay between them and their goal. 

The prow of the Half Moon was at length 
turned southward. At one place where it 
stopped the "Master's mate went on land with 
an old savage, who carried him to his house and 
made him a good cheere." The mate's enter- 
tainer was chief of a tribe consisting of forty 
men and seventeen women. They were all 
together in a house "well constructed of oak 
bark and circular in shape, with an arched 
roof." A mat of interwoven bulrushes was 
spread in the wigwam for the visitor, and some 
food — probably boiled corn-meal — was served 
in a red wooden bowl, while a hunter was sent 
to shoot some game. In a short time he returned 
with a brace of pigeons, which the hospitable 
savages supplemented by a fat dog killed in 
haste and skinned with clam shells. 

When the Highlands had been left behind 
the Half Moon was becalmed near Stony Point, 
and the "people of the mountain" came on 
board and marvelled at the ship and its equip- 
ment. One canoe kept hanging under the stern. 



12 The Picturesque Hudson 

and an Indian stole a pillow and two shirts from 
a cabin window. The mate shot at him and 
killed him. There was more trouble with the 
Indians near the north end of Manhattan Island. 
Two canoes full of savages appeared and com- 
menced an attack with their bows and arrows. 
The sailors responded with a volley of musketry, 
and with two discharges from a cannon. Nine 
of the assailants were killed and the rest hastily 
got out of range of the death-dealing guns. 

One month after entering New York Bay 
Hudson was back on the open sea and sailed 
for Holland. But part of his crew were English- 
men and these compelled him to stop at Dart- 
mouth. Before he could get away the King 
interfered with an order forbidding him to leave 
the country. So the Half Moon was sent on to 
Amsterdam without him and the following year, 
still possessed by the South Sea mania, Hudson 
in command of an English ship sailed again. 
In June he reached Greenland and keeping on 
westward presently entered the great bay which 
has received his name. From November third 
until early in the succeeding summer the ship 
was locked in ice at the southern extremity of 
the bay. After this long delay the crew insisted 
on returning home. Their food supply was 



A Backlook 13 

much diminished and they had scarcely bread 
enough to last a fortnight, but fish could be 
caught in considerable quantity and the bold 
navigator was desirous to push on toward Asia. 
Three days after leaving winter quarters, how- 
ever, the sailors mutinied and placed him with 
his own son and some others who adhered to 
him in a small boat at the mercy of the waves. 
His fate was revealed by one of the conspirators 
when the ship reached Europe, and an expedi- 
tion was sent from England in quest of the 
famous mariner, but no trace of him or his com- 
panions was ever discovered. 

The reports of Hudson's voyage in the Half 
Moon naturally stimulated interest in the 
country he had explored, and during the years 
following, a succession of the small, uncouth, 
but serviceable craft in favor among the com- 
mercial adventurers of the period, anchored 
in the bay below the Isle of Manhattan, so 
called from the name of a tribe of Indians 
dwelling in the vicinity. Whether we have 
adopted the correct form of this name is open 
to question, for no less than forty-two different 
spellings of it have been found in the old manu- 
scripts. By 1613 four rude houses had been 
built on the island, and Captain Christiansen 



14 The Picturesque Hudson 

was sailing to and fro on all the near waters 
drumming up Indian customers and getting 
skins of beaver, otter and mink in exchange for 
blue ghiss beads and strips of red cotton. 

The following year the ship of Captain Adrian 
Block was burned in New York Bay. So he 
established himself on the lower point of Man- 
hattan Island and set about building a new one. 
He and his comrades were fed by the kindness 
of the Indians until they had constructed and 
launched a little vessel of sixteen tons which 
they called the Restless. In this small craft 
they boldly adventured the untried whirlpools 
of Hell Gate, and sailed away for Holland 
through Long Island Sound. 

Meantime, a small redoubt had been built on 
Castle Island, near the present city of Albany, 
to protect the most advanced Dutch trading- 
post. But most of the trading was for years 
carried on in ships and small vessels. Cloth, 
rum, beads and cheap trinkets, knives, hatchets, 
awls, hoes and firearms were bartered on the 
decks of the vessels for beaver skins and other 
furs. The headquarters for all this traffic was 
the lower end of Manhattan Island. 

As yet the Dutch had only the most slender 
hold in the new world, and it is a curious fact 




^ 






CO 



A Backlook 15 

that the river narrowly escaped faUing under 
the sway of the EngHsh through the estabHsh- 
ment there of the voyagers on the Mayflower. 
In November, 1620, the homeseekers on this 
vessel, after beating about in the neighborhood 
of Cape Cod, stood for the southward, "the 
w^ind and weather being fair, to find some place 
about Hudson's River for their habitation. 
But after they had sailed about half a day they 
fell among dangerous shoals and roaring 
breakers, and conceived themselves in great 
danger, and resolved to bear up again for the 
Cape." 

The first Dutch colony arrived in 1623, and 
the larger portion of it settled in the vicinity of 
the future Albany, but eight men were left on 
the Island of Manhattan. Three years later 
this island, thirteen miles long, and for the most 
part two miles broad, was in due form pur- 
chased from the Indians for twenty-four dollars 
worth of beads and ribbons. It was not an 
extravagant price; but land was a possession 
that the Indians had in superabundance, and 
there is no reason to think that they were dis- 
satisfied with the bargain. The future city 
continued for many years to be no more than a 
petty village under the walls of Fort Amsterdam. 



l6 The Picturesque Hudson 

The fort was at first simply a block-house 
encircled by red cedar palisades backed by 
earthworks. East of it, along the waterside, 
stretched a line of one-story log cabins with 
bark roofs, about thirty in number, and these 
sheltered the greater part of the inhabitants. 
Nearly all the island outside of the village was 
primeval wilderness which resounded nightly 
with the growl of bears, the wail of panthers, 
and the yelps of wolves, while serpents lurked in 
the dense underbrush. The fort commanded 
the southern end of the island, overlooking the 
reef of rocks afterward filled in and extended to 
form the Battery. As time went on the log 
houses gave way to better ones, which, though 
usually small and for the most part of wood, 
were apt to have gable ends of small black and 
yellow bricks brought over from Holland, and 
often the peak of the front gable was surmounted 
by a weathercock. The people early had a 
windmill to grind their grain and another to 
saw wood, but in 1629, with a population of 
three hundred, there was neither a minister, 
nor a schoolmaster. Plainly the citizens had 
come hither for furs, and few had any intention 
of making the new world their permanent home. 




The battle monument — fFashtnaton Heights 



A-Backlook 17 

By 1 641 the place had two thousand inhabi- 
tants and was considered **a clever little town." 
Then began a terrible Indian war which lasted 
four years and threatened to drive the Dutch 
from the entire valley. 

The town was agitated with fresh alarms in 
1652 when war broke out between the Dutch 
Republic and England. So the fort was repaired 
and a wall was built across the island at the 
northern limit of the city. This wall followed 
the course of what was destined to be one of 
the world's most famous streets, and a chief 
center of commerce and finance — that is, Wall 
Street. The wall consisted in the main of a 
line of round palisades six inches in diameter, 
and twelve feet high, with a sloping earthwork 
on the inner side that rose to a height of four feet. 

The city's next taste of war did not, however, 
come from the English, but from the Indians. 
On the west side of Broadway, a little above 
Bowling Green, a burgher named Van Dyck 
had a comfortable house with its garden and 
orchard. One September afternoon in 1655 
he found an Indian squaw on his premises 
stealing peaches. Instantly he drew his pistol 
and killed her. The relations of the whites 
with the Indians were at the time perfectly 



l8 The Picturesque Hudson 

peaceful, but this cruel act wrought a direful 
change. On September fifteenth, before day- 
break, while the little town was wrapt in slum- 
ber, a swarm of canoes came to the shores of 
the island bringing almost two thousand Indians 
from tribes near and far. They thronged through 
the streets, but at first did no particular harm. 
Some of the city officials got the sachems to 
come into the fort for a conference. This re- 
sulted in the warriors' embarking in their 
canoes and paddling over to Governor's Island. 
But at sundown they returned. A party of them 
rushed up Broadway to Van Dyck's house and 
sent an arrow through his heart, and a neighbor 
who came to the rescue was struck dead with a 
tomahawk. The citizens turned out in force, 
armed and ready for battle, and the Indians 
withdrew across the Hudson where they further 
vented their wrath by burning Hoboken and 
Pavonia. Staten Island and other places were 
later devastated. Within three days they had 
slain one hundred persons and held as prisoners 
fully as many more. Numerous cattle were 
captured or driven away and an immense 
quantity of grain was burned, and intermittent 
fighting continued along the Hudson for nearly 
a decade. 



A Backlook 19 

During these troubled times the town on 
Manhattan Island barely held its own. It was 
even then a very cosmopolitan place, and nearly 
a score of different languages were spoken there. 
In 1699 the population had increased to six 
thousand. Just before the Revolution the build- 
ings numbered about twenty-five hundred. 
They were arranged so compactly that the space 
occupied was no more than a mile in length and 
half that in breadth. The streets were irregular 
and were paved with round pebbles. Most 
of the houses were of brick, many of them had 
tile roofs, and quaint dormer windows were 
common. There was still a marked separation 
between the Dutch and the English residents. 
Habits of living were primitive, and society was 
the reverse of intellectual. Manners were agree- 
ably free, conviviality at the table was the 
fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out 
of use in conversation. 

By 1800 the inhabitants numbered sixty 
thousand, which included three thousand slaves. 
The outskirts of the city were then in the 
neighborhood of the present city hall, and people 
went for drives in the country above Canal 
Street. The increase in population was hence- 



20 The Picturesque Hudson 

forth very rapid, and seventy-five years later the 
milHon mark was passed. 

To return to the early days and a more 
general survey of affairs in the Hudson Valley 
it is to be noted that vs^hile New York and 
Albany at the extreme southern and northern 
ends of the navigable river were the first settle- 
ments, other primitive hamlets were started 
between these two. Nevertheless for a long 
time the greater part of the river shore was 
practically untouched by the whites. The 
inland wilderness sheltered a large Indian popu- 
lation and was the haunt of numerous wild 
animals, including if we can believe a docu- 
ment of the period, ** lions, but they are few; 
bears, of which there are many; elks, and a 
great number of deer." 

The Netherlands were at this period so pros- 
perous and so liberally governed that very few 
Dutchmen were inclined to emigrate. Traders 
came and went but the number of new homes 
increased very slowly. To meet this difficulty 
the West India Company granted semi-mon- 
archical powers to patroons, or men of wealth 
who should establish colonies at their own 
expense in America. Each patroon had authority 
to own a tract of land with a frontage of sixteen 



A Backlook 21 

miles on one side or the other of any stream 
whose shores were not yet occupied, and the 
lots were to run back into the interior as far as 
circumstances made possible. It was, however, 
stipulated that the patroons should not settle 
the land until they had purchased it from the 

Indians. 

The device of granting these large "manors" 
as they were called, served to plant the country, 
and fields of rye, wheat, maize and barley began 
to grow in the forest clearings neighboring the 
forts, and round about the orchards and gardens 
of the manor lords, whose rule in their little 
realms was almost absolute. Thus was the 
country settled, yet in such a thin and inade- 
quate way, that when once the English chose to 
forcibly assail the Dutch power it crumbled 
with slight resistance. Both the Dutch and 
the French spread the ramifications of their 
trading companies over a vast territory, and 
neither was able to withstand the closely-settled 
agricultural colonies of the English. All parties 
concerned claimed to have right on their side; 
but Cabot's discovery and the early Virginia 
charters were poor pretexts for the seizure of 
the Dutch colony. It was, however, inevitable 
that it should be absorbed by the English simply 



^2 The Picturesque Hudson 

because the great fertile middle region was 
important to the unity and defense of the 
English settlements. So in September, 1664, 
in time of peace, the little capital on Manhattan 
Island was surprised, overawed and captured 
by an English fleet. The inhabitants had no 
desire to fight, and though brave, honest Gov- 
ernor Stuyvesant — ''Headstrong Peter" he was 
often called — angrily tore in pieces the letter 
from the English commodore requiring the 
surrender, one of the citizens gathered up the 
fragments, pieced them together and joined the 
rest of the people in forcing the governor to 
accept the terms offered. The subjugation of 
the whole of New Netherland quickly followed, 
and the territory was thrown open to English 
settlers. 

Stuyvesant, after journeying to Holland to 
make a report to the authorities, returned to 
New York to pass the few remaining years of 
his life. He lived in peaceful retirement on 
his bowery, or farm, which occupied the space 
now bounded by Fourth Avenue and the East 
River, and by Sixth and Seventeenth Streets. 
His wooden, two-story house was approached 
through a garden, bright with flowers, arranged 
in beds of geometrical pattern. A warm friend- 







"^ 



:^ 






S 



A Backlook 23 

ship sprang up between him and the English, 
and these were doubtless his happiest years. 
He died at the age of eighty in 1672. 

England and Holland were then again at 
war, and the following year a powerful Dutch 
fleet appeared in New York Bay. There was a 
brief exchange of volleys between it and the 
feeble fort, a few lives were sacrificed, and the 
city on Manhattan passed into the hands of its 
founders. The fleet shortly all sailed for 
Europe except a frigate and a sloop-of-war, and 
the conquerors of the province were left in a 
decidedly precarious situation. Houses had been 
built and gardens planted so close to the old 
Manhattan fort as to interfere with firing its 
cannon. The oflTending houses were either pulled 
down or moved away and the fortress was much 
strengthened; but in less than a year, by a treaty 
signed in Europe, the province was surrendered 
to the English. 

Thenceforth for fully a century the history 
of the Hudson is simply that of the development 
of local trade and sea-going commerce. At the 
beginning of the Revolution, New York was 
among the foremost of American seaports, and 
the Hudson Valley was the most populous and 
important highway to the interior north of the 



24 The Picturesque Hudson 

Delaware. Besides It had a vital strategic 
value because it furnished a direct water route 
between the southern coast and the English 
strongholds In Canada. It was essential that 
the American patriots should retain It In their 
control, since Its loss would mean the separation 
of New England from the rest of the colonies. 
During much of the war, therefore, a struggle 
for the possession of the Hudson went on, and 
many of the most thrilling and consequential 
operations of both armies were conducted In 
this valley. 

When the war ended, business revived more 
quickly and vigorously, perhaps, along the 
Hudson than anywhere else. All the larger 
towns considered themselves seaports, and each 
strove to bring to itself not only the country 
trade but foreign commerce. Turnpikes were 
built from the towns Inland, whaling and 
fishing craft were constructed and manned, and 
Albany and Troy secured Improvements of the 
upper channel to give them an equal chance 
with the towns lower down. Lines of fast pas- 
senger sloops sailing at regular Intervals were 
organized, and the up-river ports throve and 
made good headway even In competition with 



A Backlook 25 

New York City. But this particular form of 
prosperity was brief. 

In 1807 Robert Fulton proved on the Hudson 
that steam navigation was practical, and steam- 
boats were used for years on this river before 
they were adopted elsewhere. The new method 
of conveyance so cheapened and quickened the 
transportation of goods and passengers, that it 
lessened the importance of the up-river ports 
and ministered to the supremacy of the great 
town on Manhattan Island. Then came the 
opening of the Erie Canal and the Delaware 
and Hudson Canal, and tugs were ready to haul 
the canal boats which reached the river from 
the far interior straight on to New York without 
pause. About the same time the railways began 
building, and the fate of the up-river towns as 
seaports was sealed. They were no longer in 
the race with New York. 

Up to this time the river's present name was 
by no means universally accepted. In the early 
days every explorer gave it a name to suit his 
own fancy, and the names became awkwardly 
numerous. By the Dutch it came to be com- 
monly called the "Great River," or the "River 
of the Mountains," or the "North River" to 
distinguish it from the Delaware or "South 



26 The Picturesque Hudson 

River," and they never connected the name of 
Hudson with its waters. At present the term 
** North River/' which is still in everyday use 
in New York, applies merely to the harbor por- 
tion of the stream between the metropolis and 
Jersey City. Probably the adoption of the 
name "Hudson River" by the company which 
built the railway along the east shore has done 
more than any other agency to displace the 
name ''North River," and fasten the old navi- 
gator's name in popular speech. 




~^ 



^ 






Ill 



RIVER TRAFFIC 

TJEFORE the advent of the railroads, and for 
-*-' a number of years afterward, there was 
hardly a village on the Hudson that did not 
have a fleet of five or six sailing vessels, and 
some towns had ten times that many. A con- 
siderable proportion of the able-bodied men 
'* followed the river." Not only were they 
proud of their calling, but the skipper who 
made the best runs and carried the biggest 
freights was a man of distinction. With so 
numerous a white-winged fleet on its waters, the 
Hudson must have had a beauty which it does 
not attain at present. For no steam vessel fits 
into a scene with such grace and charm as does 
one equipped with sails. 

A voyage from the metropolis to Albany was 
then a serious undertaking. The sloops were 
often many days on the way; for the cautious 
navigators took in sail when it blew fresh, and 
came to anchor at night, and they stopped and 
sent the boat ashore to get milk for tea, without 



28 The Picturesque Hudson 

which it was impossible for the worthy old lady 
passengers to subsist. Besides there were the 
much-discussed perils of the Tappan Sea and 
the Highlands. In short, **a prudent Dutch 
burgher would talk of such a voyage for months 
beforehand, and never undertook it without 
putting his affairs in order, making his will, 
and having prayers said for him in the churches.*' 

In those simpler days, Washington Irving, 
while still a youth, made this river trip, and in a 
letter describing it says: "A sloop was chosen, 
but she had yet to complete her freight and 
secure a sufficient number of passengers. Days 
were consumed in drumming up a cargo. This 
was a tormenting delay to me, who, boy-like, 
had packed up my trunk at the first mention 
of the expedition. 

"At length the sloop actually got under way. 
As she worked slowly out of the dock into the 
stream, there was a great exchange of last 
words between friends on board and friends on 
shore, and much waving of handkerchiefs when 
the sloop was out of hearing. 

"Our captain was a native of Albany, of one 
of the old Dutch stocks. His crew was com- 
posed of blacks, reared in the family and be- 
longing to him. 



River Traffic 29 

"What a time of intense delight was that first 
sail through the Highlands. I sat on the deck 
as we slowly tided along at the foot of those 
stern mountains, and gazed with wonder and 
admiration at cliffs impending far above me, 
crowned with forests, with eagles sailing and 
screaming around them; or beheld rock and 
tree and sky reflected in the glassy stream. And 
then how solemn and thrilling the scene as we 
anchored at night at the foot of these mountains, 
and everything grew dark and mysterious; and 
I heard the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will, 
or was startled now and then by the sudden leap 
and heavy splash of the sturgeon." 

The best known name connected with navi- 
gation on the Hudson is that of Robert Fulton. 
He was American born, with a natural taste 
for art and invention. Among the various 
mechanical devices he originated were a mill 
for sawing marble, a machine for flax-spinning, 
several types of canal boats and a submarine 
torpedo. He was very far from being the first to 
propose steam navigation, but his preeminence 
in this connection is deserved, because he was 
the first to win a practical success. Experiments 
in this direction seem to have been made as 
early as 1690, and as time went on the attempts 



30 The Picturesque Hudson 

became increasingly numerous. In 1784 James 
Rumsey tried to propel a boat on the Potomac 
by forcing a jet of water from the stern with a 
steam pump. A few years later he experimented 
with a boat on the Delaware which was equipped 
with long oars moved by steam power, and he 
actually ran this curious craft as a public carrier 
on the river all through one summer. 

When Fulton took up the problem of steam 
navigation he was living in France where our 
American minister at the time was Robert R. 
Livingston. The two men met and became 
mutually interested in planning a steamboat. 
A vessel was built and launched on the Seine; 
but it was too frail for the weight of the engine, 
which broke through the bottom one stormy 
night and sank in the river. However, Fulton 
and his partner were not discouraged, and the 
latter agreed to provide funds for a larger boat 
to be tried on the Hudson. This was constructed, 
after plans furnished by Fulton, at a shipyard 
on the East River and was about 130 feet long 
with uncovered paddle-wheels at the side. She 
was named the Clermont after Livingston's 
country seat on the banks of the Hudson at 
Tivoli. 

The boat left New York for Albany on 



River Traffic 31 

August 17, 1807; and a writer of that time in 
speaking of its departure says: "Nothing could 
exceed the surprise and admiration of all who 
witnessed the experiment. Before the Clermont 
had made the progress of a quarter of a mile, 
the greatest unbeliever must have been converted. 
The man, who, while he looked on the expensive 
machine, thanked his stars that he had more 
wisdom than to waste his money on such idle 
schemes, changed the expression of his features 
as the boat moved from the wharf and gained 
her speed. The jeers of the ignorant who had 
neither sense nor feeling enough to suppress 
their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, 
were silenced by a vulgar astonishment which 
deprived them of the power of utterance, till 
the triumph of genius extorted from the incredu- 
lous multitude which crowded the shores, shouts 
of congratulation and applause." 

The Clermont made the trip to Albany in 
thirty-two hours, a speed of about five miles an 
hour, and Fulton wrote to a friend: **The 
power of propelling boats by steam is now fully 
proved. The morning I left New York there 
were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who 
believed the boat would ever move one mile an 
hour, or be of the least utility." 



32 The Picturesque Hudson 

Its success as a passenger boat was assured. 
People would not be satisfied with the slow 
sloops and stage-coaches when they could travel 
by steamboat at five miles an hour. The Cler- 
mont was equipped with two masts and sails 
to take advantage of favoring winds. She burned 
fat pine wood under her boilers, and volumes 
of black smoke poured out of her large funnel. 
At night when the smoke was brilliant with 
sparks a contemporary writer declares that 
"The crews of many sailing vessels shrank 
beneath their decks at the terrific sight, while 
others prostrated themselves and besought 
Providence to protect them from the horrible 
monster which was lighting its path by the fire 
it vomited." 

One of the Hudson Valley farmers, after 
observing the strange apparition, hurried home 
and assured his wife that he "had seen the devil 
going up the river in a sawmill." 

The year following the Clermont^s success 
two more steamers were finished for the Hudson, 
and the same number were constructed in 1809, 
and three in 181 1. For a long time nearly all 
the travelling on the boats was for business 
rather than pleasure. 



River Traffic 33 

Fulton soon turned his attention to inventing 
a steam ferry-boat, and by 18 13 had two in 
operation, one on the North and one on the 
East River. These took the place of boats that 
were propelled by driving two or four horses 
round and round in the hold. The horses were 
attached to a pole connected with a gearing 
that made the paddle wheels rotate, and the 
boats were primitive and slow. 

Not till 18 19, four years after Fulton's death, 
did a vessel propelled by steam cross the Atlantic. 
She sailed from Savannah for Liverpool and 
made the trip in twenty-eight days, using both 
sails and steam. She was so constructed that 
her paddle-wheels could be taken on to the deck 
in stormy weather. 

All the earlier river boats which followed the 
Clermont were small, and most of the space in 
them was devoted to the machinery. Accommo- 
dations for passengers were limited, and freight 
was seldom or never carried. The fare from 
New York to Albany was seven dollars, and for 
even the shortest distance between stops the 
fare was one dollar. In a steamboat advertise- 
ment published in 1808 the following caution 
supplemented the time-table: **As the times 
when the boat may arrive at the different places 



34 The Picturesque Hudson 

may vary an hour, more or less, according to 
the advantage or disadvantage of wind and 
tide, those who wish to come on board will see 
the necessity of being on the spot an hour before 
the time." 

The New York legislature at first gave Fulton 
and Livingston a monopoly in the steamboat 
business of the Hudson; but rivals presently 
began to appear, rates were cut and "runners" 
for the different steamboat lines made the New 
York water front a lively place. Competition 
was keenest about i860. The steamboat busi- 
ness had already become a good deal demoral- 
ized by the Hudson River Railroad which was 
completed to Albany in 1851, and the river 
trip from New York to Albany could be made 
for a dime. The only recourse of the steamboats 
was to charge well for meals and sleeping 
accommodations. 

Steamboating reached the height of its glory 
in 1840 when there were not far from one hun- 
dred steamboats on the Hudson. They were 
the pride of the towns from which they hailed, 
but were as a matter of fact gorgeously over- 
loaded with ornament, though it must be 
acknowledged that this vulgar mangificence 
accorded with the taste of the period. Each 



River Traffic 35 

craft had its partisans and they were ever 
ready to engage in a wordy warfare over its 
speed and beauty as compared with rival boats. 

Vessels that were at all evenly matched were 
always trying to beat each other. Sometimes 
the racing spirit was so intense that they would 
rush past an announced landing, even if a score 
or more of persons were waiting to embark, 
leaving the hapless people on the dock. During 
a race between the Fanderbilt and the Oregon 
from Albany to New York the latter's coal gave 
out; but instead of allowing this to mean 
defeat, the captain had the woodwork of the 
berths, the chairs, benches, furniture of state- 
rooms and everything else that would burn 
put under the boilers to keep up steam. He 
was rewarded for the sacrifice by having the 
satisfaction of winning the race. 

In 1852 racing was practically stopped by law, 
because it had developed so reckless a disregard 
for the safety and convenience of the passengers, 
and bursting boilers were of such frequent occur- 
rence as to make travellers very nervous. 

The Hudson is a treacherous river to navigate 
in a fog, and the pilots have to be watchful at 
all times owing to the numerous shoals and rocks. 
Only an expert can take a boat through the 



36 The Picturesque Hudson 

sharp turns of the Highlands. The disasters 
make a formidable list, though considering the 
number of persons carried the loss of life has 
been creditably small. One of the most serious 
of the wrecks among the earlier boats was that 
of the Swallow, April 7, 1845. She left Albany 
in the evening. When near the city of Hudson 
she struck a little rocky island, broke in two, 
and in a few minutes sank. Two steamboats 
with which she was racing soon came to her 
assistance and other help was rendered by 
dwellers on the land; but the night was exceed- 
ingly dark, with snow and rain and a heavy 
gale, and fifteen lives were lost. The rocks on 
which the vessel was wrecked were formerly 
known as "Noah's Brig," a title that origi- 
nated in the following incident: One night a 
raft in command of a man whose first name was 
Noah neared this point, and the skipper espied 
in the gloom a dark object looming before him 
which he concluded was a brig under full sail. 
"Brig ahoy!" he shouted. 

There was no response. Again in stentorian 
voice he hailed the craft, and still received no 
attention. The mysterious vessel kept un- 
swervingly to its course. Noah was exasperated 



River Traffic 37 

and he yelled, "Brig ahoy, there! Answer, or 
ril run you down." 

No reply was vouchsafed, and true to his 
word, he ran down the island, but without 
doing great damage either to that or his raft. 
What he thought were two masts and sails 
proved to be two trees. 

Boiler explosions were a cause of a number of 
wrecks, and collisions were responsible for others; 
but the most serious loss of life was the result of 
the burning of the Henry Clay in 1852. She was 
nearing New York from up the river when the 
fire was discovered. The captain headed her for 
the shore at Riverdale and ran her hard aground. 
But while it was only a step to the shore from 
the bow, the stern was in deep water, and unfortu- 
nately most of the passengers were cut off from 
the forward end of the boat by the flames. A 
wild panic ensued, terror-stricken men and 
women fought for possession of the life preser- 
vers and struggled with one another after 
leaping into the water. Sixty persons perished 
and among these was a sister of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne. 

The passenger steamers on the river now are 
very different from those of the old days. They 
are great floating hotels, faithful to their schedule 



38 The Picturesque Hudson 

time, swift and comfortable. Their appoint- 
ments are tasteful and they are run with a due 
regard for safety. But whether they sweep 
along in full view during the day, or pass at 
night scanning the country with the inquisitive 
brilliance of their searchlights, no one is amazed 
by them. They are far more imposing spectacles 
than Fulton's little Clermont, but that was the 
first of its kind and aroused the wonder of every 
villager and boatman from the metropolis to 
Albany. 

Of perhaps more commercial importance 
than the steamers, are the canal boats. The 
tows for down the river are made up at the basin 
just above Albany where the Erie Canal enters 
the Hudson. They are lashed four or five 
abreast and there are often from sixty to eighty 
boats in a tow, so that they string out for nearly 
half a mile. The steamers that pull these tows 
up and down the river are for the most part old 
passenger boats rebuilt and adapted for the 
purpose by the removal of their upper works. 

The Erie Canal connecting the Great Lakes 
with the tide water of the Hudson is 361 miles 
in length. It was begun in 1817, and eight 
years were required for its completion, in cele- 
bration of which a grand pageant was prepared. 




On a canal boat 



River Traffic 39 

October 26, .825, a flotilla of new and gaily 
decorated canal boats started from the Lake 
Erie end of the canal for New York C.ty. The 
news of the departure was communicated to the 
metropolis by the firing of cannon located along 
the line of the canal and the Hudson so that 
the signal travelled the entire distance m an 
hour and twenty minutes. 

When the canal boat packets reached New 
York on November fifth at five o'clock m the 
morning every vessel in the harbor was 
adorned with flags and bunting, the church 
bells rang, and a salute of cannon was fired. 
The canal boats were accompanied by a pro- 
cession of vessels to Sandy Hook where the 
schooner Dolphlu was anchored; and around 
this the flotilla circled. On the leading canal 
boat was a golden hooped keg, filled to the bung 
with the fresh water of Lake Erie. Governor 
Clinton, who was present with his retinue, 
poured the contents of the keg into the salt 
water of the Atlantic, and it was announced that 
the marriage of the Great Lakes and the ocean 
had been duly solemnized. 



IV 

MANHATTAN 

^ \ ^HE river ends at the southern point of 
^ Manhattan Island where it joins New 
York Bay. Its wide channel is here alive with 
shipping. Now and then a great ocean 
steamer passes going to and from its wharf, the 
broad, open-ended ferry boats ply back and 
forth, tugs are moving noisely hither and 
thither usually pulling some vastly bigger vessel 
or a long line of barges, and there are numerous 
other craft large and small. It must be confessed 
that most of this shipping is prosaic, and not a 
little of it is actually ugly. Even the great 
steamers that voyage to other continents con- 
sist for the most part of tremendous black hulls 
that can lay small claim to beauty. The com- 
paratively rare sailing vessels with their tapering 
masts and white canvas spread to the wind are 
almost the only ones that have any marked 
grace and charm. Steam is the ruling force, 
and the sole aim seems to be utility, yet the 
marvelous energy displayed and the vastness of 



Manhattan 41 

the business that is going on are strikingly 
impressive. 

Battery Park occupies the extreme lower end 
of the island. It is an agreeable bit of green- 
sward and trees, but a good deal marred by a 
long loop of the elevated railroad, and you 
wonder that it has not been overwhelmed long 
ago by the encroachment of the mammoth city 
buildings which rise to giddy heights in the 
immediate background. The gray, hazy mystery 
of the ocean envelops the view down the harbor, 
the waves swash ceaselessly along the masonry 
sea-wall, there is a salty odor to the air, and 
all in all it is a spot that entices to loitering and 
meditation. 

Bordering the water on the west side is a big 
spreading building very like a shallow pot with 
a low, conical cover clapped on top. This is 
Castle Garden, now an aquarium, but formerly 
used for festivals, concerts and public meetings 
of various kinds. It was originally erected by 
the government in 1807 for a fortification, but 
when finished its foundations proved too weak 
to support the weight of the heavy ordinance, 
and its intended use was abandoned. Castle 
Garden*s most notable claim to fame is the fact 
that here in 1850 was given Jenny Lind's first 



42 The Picturesque Hudson 

concert on American soil. A choice of seats was 
disposed of at auction and the first place on 
opening night brought two hundred and twenty- 
five dollars. There was an audience of five 
thousand persons, and as the New York Herald 
announced the next day, "Never did a mortal 
in this city, or perhaps any other receive such 
homage as the sovereign of song received from 
the sovereign people." Jenny Lind's share ot 
the proceeds from the opening concert was about 
ten thousand dollars, all of which she bestowed 
on various charitable and public institutions of 
the city. Nearly one-third of it went in a lump 
to the three volunteer fire departments, probably 
at the suggestion of the singer's manager, P. T. 
Barnum, who keenly appreciated the advertising 
value of such a gift. 

The huge buildings that extend from the 
Battery northward every year become more 
numerous and the new structures that are added 
have a tendency to rise higher and higher. Their 
towering masses are almost frightful in the near 
view, and the crowded gloom of the canyon- 
like streets between is depressing; but seen 
from the water, that lofty irregular skyline is 
replete with grandeur, and the buildings them- 
selves, softened and massed in the haze, with 




A glimpse of the spire of Trinity Church 



Manhattan 43 

here and there a plume of steam or smoke, or 
the gleam of a gilded dome, make a delightful 
spectacle. What a dreamy wonderland! How 
suggestive of the fabulous — as if it all might 
melt away! And what wealth and power and 
aggressiveness these soaring heights of masonry 
represent! 

Where is the spire of old Trinity at the head 
of Wall Street? We used to think it was "in 
danger of tearing the silver lining from the 
clouds with its heavenward-pointing tip." But 
now it is dwarfed to insignificance among its 
tall, worldly neighbors. 

In going up the river after leaving the Bat- 
tery, the city presents nothing especially salient 
for a long distance. The blocks of brick and 
stone repeat each other endlessly, and only 
now and then an aspiring tower or skyscraper 
on this broader portion of the island lifts itself 
conspicuously enough above its fellow buildings 
to be impressive. 

There are plenty of great ocean steamers 
along the wharves, but they lie in narrow basins 
between the big, barn-like warehouses on the 
piers, and you only get a glimpse of the tips of 
masts and smokestacks, or, in passing on the 



44 The Picturesque' Hudson 

water, obtain a hasty and unsatisfactory view 
in sharp perspective of the entire vessels. 

At 72nd Street we come to Riverside Park 
which extends along the bank of the stream to 
130th Street. It is a most attenuated strip, 
but the steep slope it occupies makes possible 
much variety in its winding roads and paths 
and affords many delectable views of the great 
river. Here are trees and shrubbery, and the 
birds flit and sing, and the children tumble and 
play on the sunny declivities of greensward, 
or loiter in the grateful shade if the day is warm. 
Here, too, the babies take their outings in care 
of mothers or nurse girls, and all sorts of other 
people ramble, or linger, or drive. 

On its most commanding height, at the extreme 
north end, is the temple-like tomb of General 
Grant. This is built of flawless white granite, 
and the cost was six hundred thousand dollars, 
representing ninety thousand individual sub- 
scriptions. The tomb is a striking landmark 
as seen from the river, but can hardly be called 
graceful. In form it resembles what a child 
might attain by placing a round block on top 
of a somewhat larger square one. Moreover 
it stands severely alone on a broad terrace with 



Manhattan 45 

no green boughs or creeping vines to soften 
its austerity. 

Farther back from the river on the airy crest 
of the ridge is Columbia University. This is 
still in the making, but has some noble buildings 
that will increase in charm with the mellowing 
of the passing years and the accumulation of 
associations. Especially satisfying is the library, 
one of the purest examples of classic Greek 
architecture in this country. It is approached 
by a broad, paved esplanade and a wide flight 
of steps, and its pillared front and great dome 
have a repose and simplicity that are delightful. 

About twenty-five streets farther north, occu- 
pying a lofty, flowing sweep of land, is the 
cemetery of Trinity Church. It is closely 
surrounded by city blocks, but when you go 
inside, where stand the ranks of tombs and 
monuments, you find abundant trees and 
shrubbery, and eternal quiet reigns. On this 
spot the naturalist Audubon dwelt for many 
years before it was taken for its present use, 
and here he is buried. 

Continuing along the ridge we presently 
come to its loftiest height where it makes a 
slight cape-like projection into the Hudson. 
At the time of the Revolution a strong earth- 



46 The Picturesque Hudson 

work was constructed here and named Fort 
Washington. Several other points in the 
neighborhood were fortified, and though the 
works were all weak, the positions they occupied 
made them formidable. 

For the defense of the city itself. General Lee, 
early in 1776, hastily gathered levies of raw 
troops in Connecticut. The merchants and 
other citizens of New York were fearful that the 
presence of these troops would make the town 
a battleground and m.ean its total destruction. 
So when Lee arrived on the same day that the 
British Squadron from Boston reached the har- 
bor the community was in a ferment of agitation. 
An exodus of the more timid inhabitants began, 
and in the succeeding hours of darkness there 
were ** carts going and boats loading, and women 
and children crying, and distressed voices heard 
in the roads." 

However, the expected clash did not occur, 
and the fleet soon sailed south. Its commander 
had apparently found the place better prepared 
for resistance than he expected; and when he 
withdrew, the Americans proceeded to fortify 
the Highlands, which was exactly what the 
British had intended to do. In April General 
Israel Putnam assumed command in the city 



Manhattan 47 

and undertook to close the Hudson by erecting 
several batteries along shore and placing ob- 
structions in the channel opposite Fort Wash- 
ington. 

Toward the end of June another British fleet 
arrived bearing a considerable body of troops. 
In all there were one hundred and thirty vessels, 
but at first their only land possession was Staten 
Island. In spite of these menacing neighbors 
the Colonials in New York greeted the news that 
the Declaration of Independence had been 
signed in Philadelphia with ardent enthusiasm. 
They celebrated the event for several days, and 
incidentally pulled down the leaden statue of 
George III which they had set up on Bowling 
Green only a short time before. The statue 
was afterward made into bullets to be used in 
the patriot cause. 

Putnam prepared fourteen fire-ships which 
were to be sent among the enemy's fleet, but the 
fleet took measures to protect itself from such 
attacks, and the fire-ships were a failure. Like- 
wise a submarine engine which was hopefully 
constructed failed to explode at the time and 
place planned, and merely blew up a vast column 
of water to the enemy's great astonishment, but 
doing no damage. 



48 The Picturesque Hudson 

The American force was decidedly smaller 
than that of the British, and was largely made 
up of raw recruits. Many of the yeomen hastily 
summoned from the farms were destitute of 
arms, lacking which they were ordered to bring 
with them a shovel or pickaxe, or a scythe 
straightened and fastened to a pole. As affairs 
grew more gloomy the militia became intract- 
able and impatient to leave. Deserters were 
the scandal of the day, and two-thirds of the 
Connecticut troops were smitten with an attack 
of homesickness that nothing but the sight of 
their own firesides could cure. The restraint 
which was indispensable to the army's effective- 
ness was too galling to men accustomed to 
unbounded freedom, and the din of arms and 
their lack of military skill made them, when 
opposed to the trained soldiers of the king, 
"ready to fly from their own shadows," as Wash- 
ington said. Members of the militia could 
only be obliged to serve three consecutive months 
beyond the boundaries of the state in which they 
were enlisted. They were called out and dis- 
banded as the exigencies demanded, and were 
nearly as apt to leave a cannon in a ditch as 
a plough in a furrow. 





;d 



•■<%. 




Manhattan 49 

If the troops could have been depended on a 
battle might have been risked in defense of the 
city, but as things w^ere, no sooner was an actual 
movement begun against the town than the 
troops withdrew in haste. It was a sultry day 
in September, and they abandoned their tents, 
blankets and heavy guns and retreated under a 
burning sun amid clouds of dust. They were 
encumbered with women and children and all 
kinds of baggage. Many were overcome by 
fatigue and thirst, and some perished by drink- 
ing cold water too freely. The safe accomplish- 
ment of the perilous retreat was said to be due 
to the fact that when the attacking force reached 
Murray Hill, then the country residence of a 
patriot of that name, Mrs. Murray sent out a 
servant to invite the British general to stop and 
take luncheon. A halt was ordered and the 
officers were entertained for over two hours. 
But while they leisurely ate and drank, and 
bantered their hostess, Putnam's flying army 
had passed by within a mile of them. 

The Americans assembled on the rocky 
heights at the northern end of Alanhattan Island. 
It was thought that the obstructions in the river 
here with their accompanying batteries on each 
shore would prevent any hostile ship from 



50 The Picturesque Hudson 

passing. But early on the morning of the ninth 
of October, several of the British vessels got 
under way and came standing up the river w^ith 
an easy southern breeze. They broke through 
the vaunted barriers as through a cobweb, and 
in spite of the constant fire of seven batteries 
passed on without a pause. About a month 
later an attack was made on Fort Washington 
garrisoned by three thousand men under the 
command of Colonel Magaw. At nightfall the 
day before, Washington had arrived at Fort 
Lee which crowned the palisades across the 
river. He entered a boat and had partly crossed 
the river when he met Generals Greene and 
Putnam returning. They assured him that the 
garrison was in admirable shape to make a 
strong defense, and prevailed on him to go back 
to the Jersey shore with them. But he was 
greatly excited, for he had urged that Manhattan 
was untenable and should be entirely abandoned, 
and this was one of the few occasions when the 
"Father of his Country" swore. 

The next day, about noon, sharp volleys of 
musketry and a heavy cannonade thundering 
among the rocky hills proclaimed that the action 
was begun. Assaults were made from four 
directions. Washington was an anxious specta- 



Manhattan 51 

tor of the battle from the opposite side of the 
Hudson. Much of it was hidden from him by 
the intervening hills and forest; but the roar of 
cannonry from the valley of the Harlem River, 
the incessant crack of rifles, and the smoke 
rising above the tree-tops showed that a spirited 
resistance was being made. The action of the 
defenders on the south lay open to him and he 
was much encouraged by the gallant style in 
which they maintained their position. But at 
last, overpowered by numbers, they retreated 
to the fort, and as Washington beheld some of 
those in the rear overtaken by Hessians and 
cut down and bayoneted, he was completely 
overcome and "wept with the tenderness of a 
child." The defenders of the outworks to the 
east and north were likewise driven in, and 
presently Washington observed a flag enter the 
fort which he surmised was a summons to 
surrender. He wrote a note to Magaw telling 
him if he could hold out till evening, he would 
endeavor to bring off the garrison in the night. 
Captain Gooch of Boston offered to be the 
bearer of the note. He hastened down to the 
river, rowed across in a small boat, clambered 
up the ridge to the fort and delivered the mes- 
sage. Then he came out, ran down the steep, 



52 The Picturesque Hudson 

broken hill, dodging the enemy, some of whom 
struck at him with their guns, while others 
attempted to thrust him with their bayonets, 
but he escaped them all, got into his boat and 
returned to Fort Lee. 

Magaw was past help. The fort was so 
crowded by the garrison and the troops from 
the outworks that movement was difficult, and 
the enemy could at any moment pour in showers 
of shells that would have made dreadful slaugh- 
ter. Fort Washington was therefore surrendered. 
This was one of the most crushing blows that 
befell the American cause during the entire 
course of the war. A considerable proportion of 
the best troops in the army was captured, 
besides an immense quantity of artillery and 
small arms, and there was gloom and fore- 
boding throughout the country. 

The site of the old fort has not yet been 
entirely overflowed by the city. It is partially 
wooded, and here and there amid the trees are 
glades of greensward, and openings that give 
pleasant glimpses of the river far below and of 
the rugged bluffs of the opposite shore. 

Two miles farther north the island ends at 
Spuyten Duyvil Creek which connects the 
Hudson with the Harlem. This waterway has 



Manhattan 53 

been deepened and widened to allow the passage 
of good-sized boats, and the tides sweep through 
it with great vigor. The origin of its curious 
name has been facetiously explained by Irving; 
and his story has some real foundation in a 
fatal exhibition of foolhardiness on the part of 
a young Dutchman in the early days of the 
colony. As Irving tells the tale— 

*' Anthony Van Corlear, the trumpeter ot 
Governor Stuyvesant, was sent post-haste, on 
the appearance of the ships of the Duke of York 
in the harbor, to warn the farmers up the river, 
and summon them to the defense of New 
Amsterdam. So just stopping to take a lusty 
dinner, and bracing to his side his junk-bottle, 
well charged with heart-inspiring Hollands, he 
issued from the city gate, sounding a farewell 
strain, that rung in sprightly echoes through the 
winding streets of New Amsterdam. 

-It was a dark and stormy night when 
Anthony arrived at the creek which separates 
the island from the mainland. The wind was 
high, the elements in an uproar. For a short 
time he paused on the brink; and then be- 
thinking himself of the urgency of his errand, 
he took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, 
swore most valorously that he would swim 



54 The Picturesque Hudson 

across in spite of the devil, and daringly plunged 
into the stream. Luckless Anthony! Scarcely 
had he buffeted half-way over, when he was 
observed to struggle violently, as if battling 
with the spirit of the waters. Instinctively he 
put his trumpet to his mouth and giving a 
vehement blast, sank forever to the bottom. 
The clangor of his trumpet rang far and wide 
through the country, alarming the neighbors 
round, who hurried in amazement to the spot. 
Here an old Dutch burgher, famed for his 
veracity, and who had been a witness of the 
fact, related to them the melancholy affair, 
with the fearful addition that he saw the devil, 
in the shape of a huge moss-bunker, seize the 
sturdy Anthony by the leg, and drag him 
beneath the waves. Certain it is the place has 
been called Spuyten Duyvil ever since." 

This little cross valley was originally thickly 
inhabitated by Indians. One great attraction, 
no doubt, was the abundance of fish, a recom- 
mendation that still holds good. Great hauls 
of shad are made at the mouth of the creek, and 
many striped bass and other less aristocratic fish 
reward the angler along its shores. 

In my own rambling in the vicinity I paused 
to chat with one of these anglers, an elderly 



II 




Fishing in Spu\ten Du\vil Creek 



Manhattan 55 

man by whom I was cordially welcomed. Cor- 
diality is an attribute of all such haunters of the 
waterside. Who ever knew a fisherman to be 
crusty and sour, selfish and uncommunicative ^ 
He has leisure, and is sure to be something of a 
philosopher. While he fishes he meditates and 
catches much more than gets on his hook, and 
I think there must be some occult influence in 
his occupation that inclines him to a friendly 
affability. My acquaintance did not have the 
most ideal surroundings. Close behind him on 
the north shore were lines of railroad tracks 
along which frequent trains thundered, but 
across the stream rose an abrupt wooded hill 
that descended to the east into a little dale of 
farmland. He smoked his pipe enjoying the 
serenity of the day and nature's genial mood, 
yet very intent on his fishing. Even while we 
visited he kept sharp watch of two poles he had 
propped up at the water's edge on a bush. 

"I came from Killarney penniless at the age 
of eighteen," said he, "and I've raised ten 
children right here in New York. My wife 
and I are still hale and hearty, and the children 
are a credit to us. Some of my daughters' 
husbands are lawyers and some are real estate 
men. They don't want me to work any more. 



56 The Picturesque Hudson 

I used to have a butcher shop, but I've given It 
up. Yes, and now I play every day, but I get 
as tired as if I was working. At first, after I 
quit work I stayed at home, but that didn't do. 
The table was always so handy I'd be tasting 
this and that, and drinking coffee, until I hadn't 
any appetite. For a change I tried fishing, and 
now I'm at it nearly all the time. I spend 
about a dollar and a half a week for bait, and 
there isn't a stream or fishing place for a long 
distance around New York that I don't know. 
I caught a five-pound bass here last year; and 
I have a standing offer of ten dollars, and no 
questions asked, for one weighing twice that 
much. I give away quite some eels and Tom- 
cods, and on the whole I'm pretty well suited. 
In fact, with plenty to eat, and drink, and a 
feather bed to sleep on, what more does a man 
want ?" 



V 

ON THE JERSEY SHORE 

ACROSS the river from the Battery is the 
ancient settlement of Communipaw where 
Dutch manners and customs are said to have 
survived longer than anywhere else in the Hud- 
son Valley. Some persons even go so far as to 
declare that the true sons of Communipaw, 
however modern their thoughts in the daytime, 
still continue to dream in Dutch. According to 
Irving in his burlesque ''History of New York," 
when the first ship from Holland bringing colo- 
nists to this country came to anchor at the 
mouth of the Hudson, there was on the Jersey 
shore "a small Indian village pleasantly em- 
bowered in a grove of spreading elms, and the 
natives all collected on the beach, gazing in 
stupid admiration at the vessel. A boat was 
immediately dispatched to enter into a treaty with 
them, and approaching the shore, the skipper 
hailed them through a trumpet, in the most 
friendly terms; but so horribly confounded were 
these poor savages at the tremendous and un- 



58 The Picturesque Hudson 

couth sound of the Dutch language, that they 
one and all took to their heels and scampered 
away over the Bergen hills. 

"Animated by this unlooked-for victory, our 
valiant heroes sprang ashore in triumph and 
carried the village of Communipaw by storm, 
notwithstanding that it was vigorously defended 
by half a score of old squaws and papooses. 
On looking about them they were transported 
with the excellencies of the place. The softness 
of the soil was wonderfully adapted to the 
driving of piles, the swamps and marshes 
afforded ample opportunities for the construct- 
ing of dykes and dams; the shallowness of the 
shore was peculiarly favorable to the building 
of docks: — in a word, this spot abounded with 
all the requisites for the foundation of a great 
Dutch city." 

There the voyagers settled in great content, 
and thence, as Irving's narrative has it, the 
founders of New Amsterdam migrated. ''Thus 
was Communipaw the parent of New York, 
though on comparing the lowly village with 
the great flaunting city which it has engendered, 
one is reminded of a squat little hen that has 
unwittingly hatched out a long-legged turkey." 

One curious legend that Irving has chronicled 






o 



\ 1^ 






b> 



On the Jersey Shore 59 

dealing largely with life in Communipaw he 
calls "Guests from Gibbet Island." The story 
describes the peaceful village tavern known as 
"The Wild Goose" and tells hov^ Yan Yost 
Vanderscamp, the landlord's nephew, suddenly 
disappeared with an old negro servant named 
Pluto. In process of time the landlord died, and 
the tavern remained shut up, waiting for a 
claimant; for the next heir was the missing 
nephew, who had not been heard of for years. 
"At length, one day, a boat was seen pulling 
for shore from a long, black, rakish-looking 
schooner that lay at anchor in the bay. The 
boat's crew seemed worthy of the craft from 
which they debarked. Never had such a set 
of noisy, roistering, swaggering varlets landed 
in peaceful Communipaw. They were outland- 
ish in garb and demeanor, and were headed by 
a burly ruffian with a scar across his face, in 
whom to their great dismay, the quiet inhabi- 
tants were made to recognize Yan Yost Vander- 
scamp. The rear of this hopeful gang was 
brought up by old Pluto, who had lost an eye 
and grown grizzled. Vanderscamp renewed his 
acquaintance with the old burghers in a manner 
not at all to their taste. He slapped them 
familiarly on the back, gave them an iron grip 



6o The Picturesque Hudson 

of the hand, and was hail-fellow-well-met. 
According to his own account, he had been all 
the world over, had made money by bags full, 
had ships in every sea, and now meant to turn 
the Wild Goose into a country-seat where he and 
his comrades, all rich merchants from foreign 
parts, might enjoy themselves in the intervals 
of their voyages. 

"From being a quiet, peaceful Dutch public 
house, the Wild Goose became a most riotous 
private dwelling, a rendezvous for boisterous 
men of the sea, who might be seen at all hours 
lounging about the door, or lolling out of the 
windows, swearing among themselves, cracking 
rough jokes on every passer-by, and shooting 
at any unhappy dog or cat, or pig that might 
happen to come within reach." 

Now and then they went off on a mysterious 
voyage, and it gradually became plain that they 
were pirates. At length the British government 
bestirred itself, **and three of the most riotous 
swashbucklers of the Wild Goose were hanged 
in chains on Gibbet Island in full sight of their 
favorite resort. Vanderscamp himself and his 
man Pluto again disappeared. The tranquillity 
of the village was restored; the worthy Dutch- 
men once more smoked their pipes in peace, 



On the Jersey Shore 6l 

eyeing with peculiar complacency their old 
pests and terrors, the pirates, dangling on 
Gibbet Island." 

But in the course of time the black man and 
his master came back and the latter "brought 
with him a wife, who seemed to have the upper 
hand of him. The Wild Goose mansion was 
again opened, but with diminished splendor 
and no riot. 

"Late one night Yan Yost Vanderscamp was 
returning across the broad bay in his light 
skiff, rowed by his man Pluto. It was a still, 
sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid clouds was 
rising in the west, with the low mutterings of 
distant thunder. The storm burst over the 
voyagers while they were yet far from shore. 
The rain fell in torrents, and the lightning 
kept up an incessant blaze. It was midnight 
before they landed at Communipaw. Dripping 
and shivering Vanderscamp crawled homeward. 
His wife met him at the threshold. 

*Is this a time,' said she, *to bring home 
company to turn the house upside down ?' 

"* Company.?' said Vanderscamp meekly; 
*I have brought no company with me.' 

'No, indeed! They have got here before 
you, and are in the blue room upstairs, making 



62 The Picturesque Hudson 

themselves as much at home as if the house 
were their own.' 

"Vanderscamp scrambled up to the room, 
and threw open the door. There at a table sat 
three guests from Gibbet Island, with halters 
round their necks, and bobbing their cups 
together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing, and 
trolling an old freebooter's glee. Starting back 
with horror, Vanderscamp missed his footing 
and fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom. 
He was taken up speechless, and was buried 
on the following Sunday. 

"From that day forward the Wild Goose was 
pronounced a haunted house, and avoided 
accordingly. No one inhabited it but Vander- 
scamp's shrew of a widow and old Pluto, and 
they were considered little better than its hob- 
goblin visitors. It was affirmed that it still 
continued to be the house of entertainment for 
such guests, and that on stormy nights the blue 
chamber was occasionally illuminated, and 
sounds of diabolical merriment were overheard, 
mingling with the howling of the tempest. 
Some treated these as idle stories until on one 
such night there was a horrible uproar in the 
Wild Goose that could not be mistaken. It was 
not so much the sound of revelry, however, as 



On the Jersey Shore 63 

strife, with two or three piercing shrieks that 
pervaded every part of the village. Neverthe- 
less, no one thought of hastening to the spot. 
On the contrary, the honest burghers of Com- 
munipaw drew their nightcaps over their ears, 
and buried their heads under the bedclothes. 

"The next morning, some of the bolder and 
more curious undertook to reconnoitre. They 
found the door wide open and everything inside 
topsy-turvy, but the most woful sight was the 
widow, a corpse on the floor of the blue chamber. 
Old Pluto had disappeared, but later his skiflF 
was picked up, drifting about the bay, bottom 
upward, and his body was found stranded 
among the rocks of Gibbet Island, near the foot 
of the pirates' gallows." 

With Communipaw's past in mind I crossed 
the river hoping that some remnants of the once 
serene little Dutch village might still survive; 
but shipping is omnipresent along the shore, 
and the land is almost monopolized by the 
railways. I followed the one highway back 
till I tired of its grim monotony and the lack of 
promise that it would lead to anything better. 
Along either side stalked a great row of telegraph 
poles bearing aloft a maze of wires, there were 
multitudinous railway tracks, and freight and 



64 The Picturesque Hudson 

passenger cars and noisy engines, mountainous 
heaps of coal, and a scattering of dubious 
buildings, while the air was laden with odors 
of gas and smoke. So I retraced my steps, 
regretting not a little the region's modern aspect 
as compared with what it had been. 

A mile or two north of Communipaw is 
Hoboken where in the far past was an Indian 
village named Hobock. The first event of 
importance chronicled in its history was a 
massacre of the Indians in 1643. ^ party of 
Dutch reinforced by Mohawk Indians, crossed 
the river at night from New York and killed a 
hundred men, women, and children at the prom- 
ontory called ''Castle Point," by either shooting 
them or driving them mercilessly into the Hudson. 
A feud between the Indians and whites had long 
existed, but there seems to have been no sufficient 
excuse for this wholesale slaughter. Hoboken 
has a more agreeable claim to fame in the fact 
that here lived Colonel John Stevens who built 
the Fha'nixy the first vessel that crossed the 
Atlantic depending entirely on steam propulsion. 
The waterfront of the place is now wholly given 
up to piers and warehouses where numerous 
great ocean liners discharge and take on their 
cargoes. 




Looking toward Neiu York from the site of the 
Burr-Hamilton duel 



On the Jersey Shore 65 

A little farther up the river, where the Weehaw- 
ken cliffs rise just back from the shore, are the 
ferry houses of the West Shore Railroad, and 
immediately south of them occurred the Burr- 
Hamilton duel. Burr had recently been de- 
feated in his candidacy for the governorship of 
Nev^ York. Party feeling had run high and there 
had been a good deal of bitter antipathy and 
acrimonious speech. Hamilton was reputed to 
be the author of certain personal reflections on 
Burr's character which led to a correspondence 
between the two culminating in a challenge 
from Burr to settle their differences by a duel. 
Their meeting-place was a narrow grassy pla- 
teau completely embowered in foliage and about 
twenty feet above the river, where a little ravine 
opens back into the bluff. The plateau was 
only six feet wide and eleven paces long. A 
great cedar tree stood at one end, and a bowlder 
at the other. It was reached by a steep, rocky 
path leading up from the water. There was no 
other path or road near, and the only way to 
get to the place was by boat. It had already 
become a resort for duelists, the first combat of 
this nature having occurred there in 1799. 

Burr and Hamilton arrived at the spot early 
in the morning of July 11, 1804. The parties 



66 The Picturesque Hudson 

exchanged salutations, and after the seconds 
had made the necessary arrangements, Burr 
took his station near the cedar and Hamilton 
near the bowlder. Both fired and Hamilton 
fell mortally wounded. When Burr saw that 
his rival had been seriously hurt he advanced 
with a manner and gesture expressive of regret, 
but being urged to leave the field by his second 
he turned and withdrew. He crossed the river 
to the city in his barge, and after a short time 
spent at his own house in New York he travelled 
South. This journey was an almost royal 
progress, for he was everywhere greeted by 
crowds of enthusiastic adherents. In the 
North, however, where the friends of Hamilton 
predominated. Burr was execrated as a murderer, 
and Hamilton's death the day after the duel 
was mourned as a public calamity. Burr was 
indicted by the grand jury, but the case never 
was brought to trial; and when Congress met. 
Burr, who was nearing the end of his term as 
Vice-President of the United States, took his 
accustomed place in the Senate as its presiding 
officer. 

A monument long marked the spot where 
Hamilton fell. It was almost destroyed by the 
gradual chipping of the relic-hunters, and at 



On the Jersey Shore 67 

last was removed to the bluff above. The plateau 
continued to be the resort of duelists for many 
years. Captain Deas, whose home was on the 
bluff was strongly opposed to this method of 
settling differences, and when he saw a party 
approaching the place often interposed and 
sometimes affected a reconciliation. The last 
duel occurred in 1845, and was a farce, for the 
pistols were loaded with cork. When the West 
Shore Railroad was opened in 1883 the duel 
terrace was torn away to make room for the 
tracks. But there is still left between the rail- 
road and the bluff a ragged strip of woods with 
a weedy undergrowth and strewing of rocks, 
and the outlook from amid the trees affords a 
rather charming view of the mighty city off 
across the broad river. 

At Shadyside, two miles farther north, was 
fought a very lively minor engagement in the 
Revolutionaly War. Here was a ferry, and 
near by a blockhouse had been erected which was 
garrisoned by a detachment of British troops. 
This garrison protected the loyalists of the 
neighborhood who had a disagreeable habit of 
picking up any of the rebels' cattle and horses 
that strayed into the vicinity. The Continentals 
attacked the blockhouse intending to drive away 



68 The Picturesque Hudson 

the garrison and get possession of such stolen 
property as they could for its rightful owners. 
But they were repulsed with the loss of sixty 
men, and retired after destroying some boats 
and securing a number of cattle. 

Tw^o miles above Weehaw^ken, the Bergen 
Ridge which hitherto has fronted the river, 
trends inland, and in its place a new and much 
higher wall of trap-rock, extends northward 
with scarcely a break for many miles. Accord- 
ing to the Mohicans this great rampart along the 
west bank of the river, rising almost from the 
water's edge, was erected by the Great Spirit 
to protect his favorite abodes from the unhal- 
lowed eyes of mortals. The early settlers 
called it The Palisades, a name naturally sug- 
gested to pioneers who were so familiar with 
stockades made of logs set on end. The Pali- 
sades are of the same formation as the Giant's 
Causeway in Ireland and Fingal's Cave on the 
Scotch Island of Staffa; and consist of a lava 
rock that in some ancient time, while molten, 
filled a rift in the earth's surface. It cooled in 
columnar form, and the softer rock on either 
side gradually wore away leaving this tremen- 
dous line of cliff with its peculiar formation. 



On the Jersey Shore 69 

From a distance the clifF seems singularly 
regular, but In a near view It Is found to have 
many minor undulations and breaks and juttmg 
crags that make the great mass of weather- 
beaten rock quite delightful in its variety of 
outline. Only its upper portion Is wholly 
exposed and perpendicular In its rise; for 
below this final uplift Is a long slope of shattered 
fragments where numerous trees have found a 
footing and adorn the declivity with their foliage. 
At the southern end the Palisades start with a 
height of about three hundred feet, and gradu- 
ally rise till, twenty miles to the north where 
they end at the Tappan Sea, they reach an 
altitude of five hundred and fifty feet. The 
broad river dwarfs their height, and It Is only 
when you observe the comparative size ot a 
house or a boat at their base that you get an 
adequate Idea of their magnitude. Breaks 
sufficient to enable wagon roads to descend to 
the river occur in only three places, and scarcely 
more places exist where a foot climber can 
make the descent. 

For some two miles at the southern extremity 
a road runs along the top of this lofty, breezy 
ridge and afl:ords a charming outlook. The 
opposite low, verdant shore Is in view for a long 



70 The Picturesque Hudson 

distance to the north, while in the other direction 
the eye reaches to the far-ofF metropoHs, and 
on a clear day even to its crowded bay. 

The crest of the promontory where the Pali- 
sades begin was fortified with a strong redoubt, 
known as Fort Lee, early in the Revolutionary 
War, but after the capture of Fort Washington 
across the river it was plain that this companion 
stronghold was doomed. Every effort was made to 
remove the ammunition and stores. Within a few 
days, however, a large British force landed five 
miles above and marched rapidly in its direction 
to effect its capture. The Americans retreated 
in great haste abandoning all their cannon, 
blankets and eatables. Tents were left standing 
and camp kettles on the fires. 

The site of the old fort is at present a neglected 
tract overgrown with trees and bushes; and amid 
the thin woods and rocky hollows the wild flowers 
flourish in spite of wanderers from New York 
who pluck them unmercifully. 

One of the highest and most striking points 
of the Palisades is Indian Head near their 
northern termination. The rugged beauty of 
this outjutting shoulder of rock has always been 
admired and it was a favorite outlook for the 
Indians long centuries before any white man 




A waterside dwelling 



On the Jersey Shore 7^ 

ever saw it. But unfortunately the kind of 
rock and its convenient situation made it the 
prey of a contractor in search of road material. 
Blasting operations were begun and the wild 
grandeur of the craggy point was much injured 
before the public was sufficiently aroused to 
demand that the mutilation be stopped. Lest 
the rest of the Palisades should share the same 
fate, and this wonderful example of nature's 
sculpture be lost to future generations, the 
entire strip was purchased jointly by the states 
of New York and New Jersey, and now it is 
a park. Many campers resort to the Palisades 
in summer, and for their benefit the park 
authorities have made a path that creeps along 
in a piquantly irregular way near the verge ot 
the river, over the knolls and in and out of the 
hollows. 



VI 

THE FISH AND THE FISHERMEN 

/^NE of the few breaks in the mighty wall of 
^-^ the Palisades is Alpine Gorge, directly 
across the river from Yonkers. Here a road 
makes a steep zigzag up to the summit of the 
cliff. By the shore are a few scattered dwellings, 
all small, and some of them merely one-room 
shacks that serve as shelters for the fishermen 
during the spring run of the shad. The vicinity 
was especially charming at the time of my visit, 
when the new leafage was bedecking the rocky 
slope with its tender green, and the wild apple 
trees were here and there blushing full of bloom, 
and an occasional dogwood with its scattering 
of big white blossoms like a fragment of a 
snowstorm, brightened the woodland. 

Among the dwellings at Alpine Gorge I 
observed particularly a little white-washed cabin 
with a bunch of big willows in front of it reach- 
ing out over the water and shadowing a slender 
wharf that had a rowboat fastened at the end. 
The house looked quite idyllic at a short remove, 



The Fish and the Fishermen 73 

but in the near view its shabbiness was decidedly 
too apparent. The family Hving in it included 
numerous children, several of whom attended 
school on the upland. The schoolhouse was a 
long distance away by the road, but the children 
had discovered short cuts that enabled them 
to get there in about twenty minutes. The 
woman of the house seemed to think that the 
environment of their home was on the whole 
rather agreeable. "But it's pretty bad here in 
the middle of winter," she acknowledged, "and 
it is too hot sometimes in summer. Usually, 
though, on the hot days there's a breeze, we're 
so near the water, and we have the shade of 
the rocks in the afternoon." 

Under a clump of bushes was a hen-coop 
with a brood of young chickens running about 
near it, and I asked if the wild creatures that 
inhabited the untamed surroundings did not 
make havoc with the poultry. 

"No," she responded, "they don't bother us 
much, and I think it's because we don't offer 
to harm them. If we went to shooting 'em, 
they'd come and carry off our chickens just out 
of revenge. We have foxes and skunks and 
mink and rabbits along here, and every year a 
pair of eagles builds a nest up on one of the 



74 The Picturesque Hudson 

crags. I see the eagles every morning and night 
as they go and come. We ought to have twelve 
chickens; but the dog ate two of the eggs. 
That's why he's tied up." 

The oldest dwelling in the group by the 
shore is a colonial house of humble type in 
which Cornwallis is reputed to have stopped at 
one time. Immediately behind it is the abrupt 
slope of shattered fragments that in the course 
of ages have broken from the cliff towering over 
all the scene. The disintegration still goes on, 
and within a few rods of the old house is a 
forty-ton bowlder that rolled down a few years 
ago from near the top of the cliff. '*It was in 
the month of April," explained a local resident, 
**and about seven in the evening. There must 
have been ice in the cracks of the cliff, and the 
heat that day made the ice expand and loosened 
a great mass of rock. You'd have thought from 
the noise that the whole mountain was coming 
down. The only person in the house was a 
woman, and she was a lucky bird, for she was 
so scared she didn't dare stir. If she'd run out, 
some of the stones would most likely have hit 
her. That big one just missed the house and 
a smaller one jammed half-way through the 
kitchen wall and is there yet. Look up at the 



/I 










The Fish and the Fishermen 75 

cliff and notice all those yaller places. Pieces 
have dropped away there in recent years and 
the weather hasn't had time to turn the surface 
gray. Spring is the time when most of 'em 
loosen. Let a stranger come and camp by the 
shore at that season, and he hears the rocks 
dropping all night. It makes him nervous. 
He gets up in the morning and looks at the cliff 
and says, *I guess I'll get out of here.' " 

The man whom I have quoted was mending 
a shad net hung over some low poles. " The shad 
ain't running very good this year," he said. 
**This river is getting played out for shad 
fishing; but I seen the time when fishing here 
at Alpine was quite a business, and all the men 
around made a living at it. Now they only 
put in a few weeks while the shad run lasts, 
and then they work out. We can't make 
enough to earn our salt. I had an uncle who 
used to clear a thousand or two thousand 
dollars every year shad fishing. He had eight 
men working for him. They'd get a boat load 
at every haul those days — get so many they'd 
be tired of handling 'em. The fish were sold 
for four or five dollars a hundred, but the 
fishermen then did much better at that price 
than we do selling for from twenty-five to 



76 The Picturesque Hudson 

seventy-five cents apiece. I don't know what 
has happened to the shad. Probably the sewers 
that discharge into the river from the towns 
and cities are a good deal to blame; for shad 
are clean water fish, you know, and can't live 
in foul water. Then there's the carp that have 
been brought from Germany and put into the 
Hudson. They're always nosing around the 
bottom, and I understand that they eat the 
shad's eggs. Those carp have increased very 
fast, and they grow to be big fish, too. One 
was ketched here last year that weighed twenty- 
eight pounds. But they have a coarse, rank 
flesh, and a good many people won't eat 'em." 
The fishermen along shore are on the lookout 
for the first arrival of shad as soon as the chill 
of the ice is out of the river. A few days of 
warm south wind, in the early part of April, 
suffice to start them on their migration from the 
sea up the river, while a cold north wind will 
as quickly send them back. The appearance 
of the vanguard of the unnumbered host of 
migrating shad is promptly heralded by the 
newspapers, and the tidings are telegraphed 
from one end of the Hudson to the other. When 
the fish go up the river they are in prime condi- 



The Fish and the Fishermen 77 

tion; but when they return a few weeks later, 
after spawning, they are poor and thin. 

The demand for shad has grown with the 
increase of population and improved facihties 
for shipping them to a distance. Not many 
years ago statistics showed that in the thirty-five 
hundred nets in use on the Hudson over a 
miUion shad were caught. It is no wonder that 
the supply tends to fail when the river is fished 
so energetically. Possibly, too, besides deter- 
rents that have been mentioned, the constant 
dumping of ashes and cinders by the steamers 
has prevented the development of those forms 
of life on which the fish are dependent for food. 

The shad formerly ran up to Baker's Falls, 
about fifty miles above the Troy dam, the 
building of which has curtailed the migration 
that much. In those days the farmers came 
from distant points and camped at the Falls to 
catch fish for salting down. 

The ordinary drift net used for shad fishing 
in the Hudson, is fully a half-mile long and 
thirty feet wide, and is made of linen twine. 
Years ago the fish were taken mainly by seines 
hauled by a large number of men. One end 
of the seine was made fast at the shore and the 
rest was piled in the back end of the boat and 



78 The Picturesque Hudson 

gradually dropped overboard, while the rowers 
in their course made a long loop out into the 
river and returned to the shore. But now all 
the deeper part of the river is fished with the 
delicate gill-nets, that drift to and fro with the 
tide, and are managed by two men in a boat. 
The net is practically invisible to the shad in 
the obscure river current. It hangs suspended 
perpendicularly in the water, kept in position 
by weights at the bottom and by buoys at the 
top which are attached by cords twelve or 
fifteen feet long to allow the net to sink out of 
the reach of the keels of passing vessels. The 
net stretches nearly across the river. It is thrown 
out on the ebb tide and drifts down, and then 
back on the flood tide, and the fish are snared 
behind the gills in their endeavor to pass through 
the meshes. 

At Alpine they used set nets that as a rule 
were twenty feet wide and six hundred feet long. 
Slender oak poles from forty-five to sixty feet 
in length are driven into the river bottoms at 
regular intervals, extending in a long row 
athwart the current. The net is fastened to the 
down-stream side of these poles at the beginning 
of each flood tide, and taken in when the flow 
turns in the other direction. **The ebb tide 



The Fish and the Fishermen 79 

would sweep it right out flat on the water," 
said my fisherman friend, **if we didn't take it 
in, and it would be all torn to pieces by the 
driftwood. So we go out every six hours, day 
and night. There's plenty of work and not 
much sleep, and I lose weight during the shad 
run to beat the band. We don't get any chance 
for napping during the day, because then all 
our time that isn't taken up by other jobs has 
to be spent in mending the nets. Sometimes 
the shad make breaks, or a big sturgeon goes 
through, or the meshes catch on slivers of the 
poles. Besides, the river is solid full of 
klinkers that the nets get afoul of. Worst of 
all, one of the sloops or other river vessels may 
cut 'em in two, and perhaps carries away 
quite a piece that we never get again. My 
nets are cut that way on an average once a 
week. Some boats are very accommodating 
about avoiding our nets, but a good many cap'ns 
don't care. It doesn't do to say anything to 'em. 
If you do they tell you they'll give you a better 
dose next time by going broadside over you. 
Well, you can't blame 'em much. There's so 
many nets they get sick and tired of steering 
round 'em. With the best of care a net is only 



8o The Picturesque Hudson 

good for two seasons. I like a new net. When 
a shad strikes that he's there. 

"It's hard work, this fishing business, and 
more or less dangerous. Still, I never heard 
tell of a fisherman getting drownded yet. In 
fact, the only native of this place who's been 
drownded within my remembrance was a boy 
who lived in that next house above here. He 
was eight years old and out in a boat alone. 
The fishermen's children do take awful chances — 
little bits of chaps that ain't fit to go in a boat 
at all. 

"We picked a feller up last summer who 
was drownded right off this dock. He had a 
pillow-tick full of stones tied around his waist. 
The man was well off, but he was a great 
inventor of patents, and that made him go 
crazy. 

** Another recent drowning occurred a little 
below here. Two fellers took a permit to camp 
and they'd no sooner got their tent pitched than 
they went out in a boat and one of 'em jumped 
into the water to bathe. But he couldn't swim 
and the other feller didn't know an oar from a 
shovel, and as he couldn't manage the boat to 
be of any help, the chap in the water drowned. 



The Fish and the Fishermen 8i 

"The river is a great place for accidents, 
and some of 'em are very curious. Near Chnton 
Point there's a conical shaped rock that rises 
high up just a little back from the v^ater. Once 
a young man and a young woman v^ere on the 
rock, and some of their friends v^ho were not 
far behind, called to them not to get too near 
the edge. The young couple made some joking 
answer and a moment later they disappeared 
from sight. Their friends ran to see what had 
happened and looked down the steep side of 
the precipice. No one was in sight except three 
or four boatmen on the shore of the river. The 
people up above shouted and told the boatmen 
of the sudden vanishing of the young couple, 
but the boatmen hadn't seen nor heard anything 
unusual. They all joined in the search, but 
they found no trace of the missing ones, and their 
disappearance has been a mystery ever since. 

*'A queer thing of a different sort had to do 
with the river right here. It was in Civil War 
time. I was somewhere on earth but too small 
to remember much, and I'm telling you what 
my father told me. The river was frozen over 
solid for forty days, and a man started a beer 
saloon right in the middle of the stream. It was 
quite a thing to go out to his hut and have a 



82 The Picturesque Hudson 

drink. The proprietor stayed there till his 
stove melted through the ice." 

In the fall an occasional fisherman makes a 
business of catching striped bass; and herring, 
perch, white fish and young blue fish are caught 
to a varying extent. Carp are the only fish that 
seem to be increasing. Sturgeon, the giants 
of the river fish tribe, are becoming rare. They 
are monsters of uncouth appearance, with 
curious horny projections along the sides, and 
they spend much of the time rooting and feeding 
in the mud at the bottom of the river. Ordi- 
narily they are caught in a strong gill-net. The 
flesh is coarse, yet not unpalatable if properly 
cooked. 

Albany, in particular, used to be famous for its 
sturgeon, and was sometimes in derision called 
"Sturgeonville, " while the fish itself was known 
as ''Albany beef." A single sturgeon some- 
times attains a weight of nearly five hundred 
pounds, and a length of eight feet. In the old 
days the price of a sturgeon was as low as a 
jackknife, and they were then caught in large 
quantities for their oil. This oil was used for 
the same purposes as sperm whale oil, and 
was considered especially good for cuts and 
burns. 




A Colonial home at the foot of the Palisades 



The Fish and the Fishermen 83 

The Indians found the bays and shallows 
of the river proHfic breeding places for oysters, 
and to some of the tribes the bivalves are reputed 
to have been a chief source of sustenance. This 
plentiful and cheap oyster supply was likewise 
a great boon to the poorer people of New York 
in the early years, but the oyster industry in the 
Hudson has long been decadent. Little fleets 
of boats, whose occupants were wielding the 
long ungainly poles that served to bring up the 
oysters from the river bed, were formerly often 
seen; but they are yearly becoming less. 

One of my fishermen acquaintances at 
Alpine rowed me across the river to Yonkers 
when he carried over his day's catch of shad. 
There were only a dozen or so and they did not 
half fill the basket into which he had thrown 
them. "It's not much like the old days," he 
said, "when I've known 'em to take eight 
hundred shad at a single lift of the net." 

Not the least of Yonker's claims to interest 
is its name. This originated back in the time 
of the Dutch domination. The first person to 
acquire the manor that included this territory 
was a man of comparative youth, and his little 
settlement was popularly known as the "Colony 
of the Jonkheer's," the final word being equiva- 



84 The Picturesque Hudson 

lent to the ** Young Lord's." It came into his 
possession in 1652, but he shortly afterward 
returned to Holland. About three decades 
later it passed into the hands of Frederick 
Philipse, who, with his other lands, was lord 
of a domain that would put to shame the patri- 
mony of many a prince. Presently he married 
a wealthy widow and was the richest man in 
the Colonies. His dwelling was at Tarrytown, 
though a manor-house in which his descendants 
lived was built at Yonkers. 

In the Revolution while two British frigates 
were at anchor just off shore, some Americans 
rowed out of the creek that flowed through the 
village towing a large tender filled with com- 
bustibles. They intended to place is alongside 
of the frigates as a fire-ship, but the English 
sailors kept it off by means of spars, and a 
heavy fire of grape and canister compelled the 
patriots to withdraw and seek shelter. 

In 1813, what would now include all the 
central portion of the city was sold at auction 
for ^^56,000. On the entire estate of 320 acres 
there were then less than a dozen houses. For 
three decades more Yonkers continued to be 
an insignificant hamlet, and at the end of that 
time the gray old manor-house, a church, a 



The Fish and the Fishermen 85 

few indifferent dwellings and a single sloop at 
a small wharf comprised the whole borough. 
But as soon as the operation of the Hudson River 
Railroad began there was a lively demand for 
property in the locality and the susbsequent 
growth of the place has been rapid. Among the 
eminent people who have made it their home 
was Samuel J. Tilden, a candidate for the 
presidency in the contested election which was 
finally decided in favor of Hayes. Here he 
spent the declining years of his busy and influen- 
tial life at "Graystone," as he called his granite- 
walled mansion. The grounds around it are 
especially noteworthy for the magnificent trees 
that grow in almost forest-like profusion along 
the avenues of approach and on the slopes that 
descend to the river. 



VII 

THE TAPPAN SEA 

THE first portion of the name of this stretch 
of the Hudson comes from a tribe of 
Indians that inhabited the west shore, and it 
is a "Sea" because the river here is so extra- 
ordinarily wide. It is ten miles long and has 
an average breadth of two and a half miles. The 
water is brackish — a mingling of fresh water 
from the hills with salt water from the ocean. 
The graceful and varied horizon line and the 
silvery haze that commonly envelops the 
distance make its aspect very charming. At the 
southern end the Palisades rise in majesty, 
and near the north end, on the western side, are 
the superb cliffs of the promontory known as 
Point-no-Point, or Hook Mountain. 

This little sea is a famous cruising place for 
ghosts and goblins, and all the region is rich 
with legends. For instance, there is the story 
of Rambout Van Dam, the unresting oarsman 
whom some witchery compels to never-ending 
labor on the tides of this inland sea. He was a 



The Tappan Sea 87 

roistering youth who counted neither distance 
nor exertion of any consequence when a pleasure 
was in prospect. His home was at Spuyten 
Duyvil, and yet when he heard there was to be 
a quilting frolic at Kakiat, a secluded hamlet 
hidden among the hills near the north end of 
the Tappan Sea, he rowed all that long way up 
the river to be present. Apparently he did not 
find this pull very fatiguing after all, for at the 
merry-making he danced and drank with a 
vigor that was not surpassed by any one else 
present. 

It was a Saturday night, and the hour of 
twelve came before he had any thought that he 
had lingered so long. Then he started for home. 
His companions warned him against the perils 
of Sabbath-breaking which was considered a 
cardinal sin. But Rambout was confident and 
reckless and disregarded every warning. He 
embarked in his boat swearing that he would 
not land till he reached Spuyten Duyvil; and 
he has not arrived there even yet. Because of 
his desecration of the Sabbath he is doomed to 
journey on the broad river until the day of 
judgment. Often in the still twilight of a 
summer evening, when the opposite hills throw 
their purple shadows half across the river, a 



88 The Picturesque Hudson 

low sound is heard as of the steady, vigorous 
pull of oars, though not a boat is to be descried. 
The rower is Rambout Van Dam of graceless 
memory, but whether he is now a ghost, or is 
still flesh and blood, none can say. 

Another apparition that frequents these waters 
is the Storm-ship. Some people have doubted 
the existence of this phantom craft and class it 
with fabulous monsters and mental hallucina- 
tions, but these are not people who have navi- 
gated the waters of the Tappan Sea at night. 
Irving tells its story substantially as follows: 

'Tn the golden age of the province of the 
New Netherlands, when under the sway of 
Wouter Van Twiller, the people of the Manhat- 
toes were alarmed one sultry afternoon by a 
tremendous storm of thunder and lightning. 
The rain fell in torrents. It seemed as if the 
thunder rattled over the very roofs of the 
houses. The lightning was seen to play about 
the church of St. Nicholas, and to strive three 
times in vain to strike its weather-cock. Garret 
Van Home's new chimney was split almost 
from top to bottom; and DofFue Middleberger 
was struck speechless from his bald-faced mare 
as he was riding into town. 



The Tappan Sea 89 

"Great was the terror of the good old women 
of the Manhattoes. They gathered their chil- 
dren together, and took refuge in the cellars, 
after having hung a shoe on the iron point of 
every bedpost, lest it should attract the lightning. 
At length the storm abated, the thunder sank 
to a growl, the setting sun, breaking from under 
the fringed borders of the clouds, made the 
broad bosom of the bay gleam like a sea of 
molten gold. 

*'Then word was given from the fort that a 
ship was standing up the bay. It passed from 
mouth to mouth, and street to street, and soon 
put the little capital in a bustle. The arrival 
of a ship in those early times of the settlement, 
was an event of vast importance to the inhabi- 
tants. It brought news from the land of their 
birth, from which they were so completely 
severed. To the yearly ship, too, they looked 
for their supply of luxuries, of comforts and 
almost of necessaries. The good vrouw could 
not have her new cap or new gown until the 
arrival of the ship; the burgomaster waited 
for his pipe; the schoolboy for his top and 
marbles; and the lordly landholder for the 
bricks with which he was to build his new 
mansion. 



go The Picturesque Hudson 

"The news from the fort therefore, brought 
all the populace down to the Battery. It was 
not exactly the time when the ship had been 
expected to arrive, and the circumstance was a 
matter of some speculation. Here and there 
might be seen a burgomaster of slow and 
pompous gravity, giving his opinion with great 
confidence to a crowd of old women and idle 
boys. At another place was a knot of weather- 
beaten fellows who had been seamen or fisher- 
men, and were great authorities on such occa- 
sions. But the man most looked up to, and 
followed and watched was Hans Van Pelt, an 
old Dutch sea-captain retired from service, the 
nautical oracle of the place. He reconnoitered 
the ship through an ancient telescope, hummed 
a tune, and said nothing. A hum, however, 
from Hans Van Pelt had more weight with the 
public than a speech from another man. 

"The ship was a stout, round vessel, with 
high bow and poop. The evening sun gilded 
her bellying canvas, as she came riding over 
the long billows. The sentinel who had given 
notice of her approach declared that he first got 
sight of her when she was in the center of the 
bay; and that she broke suddenly on his sight, 
just as if she had come out of the bosom of the 



The Tappan Sea 91 

black thunder-cloud. The bystanders looked 
at Hans Van Pelt, to see what he would say to 
this report. Hans Van Pelt screwed his mouth 
closer together, and said nothing; on which 
some shook their heads, and others shrugged 
their shoulders. 

**The ship was now repeatedly hailed, but 
made no reply, and passing by the fort, stood 
on up the Hudson. Trade regulations did not 
allow any vessel to go up the river without a 
permit, and a gun was fired by Hans Van Pelt, 
the garrison not being expert in artillery. The 
shot seemed absolutely to pass through the 
ship, and to skip along the water on the other 
side, but no notice was taken of it! What was 
strange, she had all her sails set, and sailed 
right against wind and tide, which were both 
down the river. Hans Van Pelt, who was har- 
bor-master, ordered his boat, and set off to 
board her; but after rowing two or three hours 
he returned without success. Sometimes he 
would get within one or two hundred yards of 
her, and then in a twinkling, she would be half 
a mile off. Some said it was because his oars- 
men, who were rather pursy and short-winded, 
stopped every now and then to take breath and 
spit on their hands; but this, it is probable, 



92 The Picturesque Hudson 

was a mere scandal. He got near enough, 
however, to see the crew, who were all dressed 
in Dutch style, the officers in doublets and high 
hats and feathers. Not a word was spoken by 
anyone on board. They stood as motionless 
as so many statues, and the ship seemed as if 
left to her own government. Thus she kept on, 
away up the river, lessening and lessening in the 
evening sunshine, until she faded from sight, like 
a little white cloud melting in the summer sky. 

"The appearance of this ship threw the 
governor into one of the deepest doubts that 
ever beset him in the whole course of his admin- 
istration. Fears were entertained for the security 
of the infant settlements on the river, lest this 
might be an enemy's ship in disguise. The 
governor sat in his chair of state, smoking his 
long pipe, and listening to all that his coun- 
sellors had to say on a subject about which 
they knew nothing. 

"Messengers were dispatched to different 
places on the river; but they returned without 
any tidings — the ship had made no port. Day 
after day, and week after week elapsed, but she 
never returned down the Hudson. However, 
the captains of the sloops seldom arrived without 
bringing some report of having seen the strange 



The Tappan Sea 93 

ship at different parts of the river; sometimes 
near the Palisadoes, sometimes off Croton 
Point, and sometimes in the Highlands. The 
crews of the sloops generally differed among 
themselves in their accounts of these appari- 
tions; but that may have arisen from the un- 
certain situations in w^hich they sav^ her. Some- 
times it was by the flashes of the thunder storm 
lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpses 
of her careering across the Tappan Sea, or the 
wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. At one moment 
she would appear close on them, as if likely to 
run them down, and would throw them into 
great bustle and alarm; but the next flash 
would show her far off, always sailing against 
the wind. Sometimes, in quiet moonlight nights, 
she would be seen under some high bluff of the 
Highlands, all in deep shadow, excepting her 
topsails glittering in the moonbeams. By the 
time the voyagers reached the place, no ship 
was to be seen; and when they had passed on 
for some distance, and looked back, behold! 
there she was again, with her topsails in the 
moonlight! Her appearance was always just 
after, or just before, or just in the midst of 
unruly weather; and she was known among 



94 The Picturesque Hudson 

the skippers and voyagers of the Hudson by 
the name of * the storm-ship.' 

"It would be endless to repeat the conjec- 
tures and opinions uttered on the subject. Some 
quoted cases of ships seen off the coast of New 
England, navigated by witches and goblins. 
Others suggested that if it really was super- 
natural it might be Hendrick Hudson's vessel, 
the Half Moon. Indeed it had already been 
reported that he and his crew haunted the 
Catskill Mountains, and it seemed very reason- 
able to suppose that his ship might bear the 
shadowy crew to their periodical revels. 

"The storm-ship continued a matter of 
popular belief and marvelous anecdote through 
the whole time of the Dutch government. Since 
that time we have no authentic accounts of her; 
though it is said she still haunts the Highlands, 
and cruises about Point-no-Point. People who 
live along the river insist that they sometimes 
see her in summer moonlight; and that in a 
deep still midnight they have heard the chant 
of her crew; but sights and sounds are so 
deceptive along the mountainous shores, and 
about the wide bays and long reaches of this 
great river that I have very strong doubts on 
the subject." 







CO 



b>i 



The Tappan Sea 95 

Near the southern end of the Tappan Sea, 
just back of the west shore hills, is historic old 
Tappan where Andre was hung. As a rule 
American feeling toward that ill-fated youth 
has always been kindly and sympathetic, but 
when Cyrus W. Field erected a monument at 
Tappan a few decades ago to commemorate 
Andre's association with the town in those 
eventful days of the Revolution some rampant 
patriot with more zeal than sense promptly 
applied an explosive and destroyed it. 

Across the river is Dobbs Ferry. Its name 
dates back to the time when Jeremiah Dobbs, 
one of the first settlers in the region, had a 
shanty on Willow Point and eked out his 
modest living by carrying chance travellers 
across the river in his dugout. The modern 
inhabitants of the place are reputed to be bur- 
dened with a keen regret that this ancient ferry- 
man did not have a different name to bestow 
on the town that has grown up there, and they 
have even made a number of efforts to get the 
legislature to authorize the use of a more eu- 
phonious cognomen. At the various public 
meetings held to agitate the question several 
substitutes have been suggested. For instance, 
it was urged that the town should take the name 



g6 The Picturesque Hudson 

of one of the three captors of Major Andre — say 
Paulding or Van Wart. As to Van Wart, 
somebody proposed that they drop the Van and 
call the place "Wart on the Hudson." The 
agitation thus far has failed of success, and 
Dobbs Ferry is still on the map. 

Near the north end of the Tappan Sea is 
another town that has been much disturbed 
over its name. Here, by the shore, is the famous 
Sing Sing State Prison, and behind it on the 
hills is a village, also called Sing Sing until 
recently. Naturally the prison name does not 
arouse in the minds of the general public asso- 
ciations that are especially agreeable. Everyone 
knows of the prison, comparatively few have 
ever heard of the village; and a dweller in the 
latter could scarcely avow to a stranger that 
Sing Sing was his home without an explanation. 
The place itself was never a penal colony as 
outsiders have been prone to imagine. It has 
grown to be a populous and attractive suburb 
of New York, and from its slopes commands a 
very beautiful view of the river. The prison 
continues to be Sing Sing, this odd designation 
being a corruption of a Mohican word, Ossining, 
which is descriptive of the rocky nature of the 
site; but the town has adopted the original 



The Tappan Sea 97 

form of the name. Sing Sing prison was 
founded in 1826 when a state official brought 
one hundred convicts to the place and set them 
at work to wall themselves in. They were three 
years in completing the main building. Nearly 
two thousand persons now find in this great 
prison the quiet which complete seclusion from 
society affords. 

Ossining's northern boundary is the Croton 
River, chiefly important as the sole source of 
the water supply of New York City for more 
than a generation. The river is a mild, vernal 
stream emptying into a bay of the same name. 
Not far back is the reservoir from which the 
**old" aqueduct carries the water to the city. 
This aqueduct was finished in 1842. It is of 
brick and is placed on or near the surface, 
occasionally tunnelling under high ground and 
again spanning some ravine on arches. In the 
course of time it proved inadequate and a second 
aqueduct was completed in 1890. This is of 
brick also, but is laid in an almost straight line 
from Croton Lake to the Harlem through the 
solid rock at an average depth below the surface 
of five hundred feet. As many as ten thousand 
men were employed on it at times, and the cost 
was twenty-five million dollars. Nothing to 



98 The Picturesque Hudson 

equal it in magnitude of engineering had then 
been accomplished in any other part of the 
world. 

Above the bay which receives the Croton is 
the old manor-house of the Van Cortlandts, 
which is not only interesting on account of its 
age and historic associations, but because it is 
haunted by two ghosts. One of them wanders 
through the ancient rooms with a sound of 
rustling silks, and the other treads heavily along 
the halls and up the stairways. 

The site of the manor-house was once occu- 
pied by an Indian fort in which Chief Croton, 
the sachem who ruled in the immediate neigh- 
borhood, made his last stand against a foray of 
his fierce enemies from the north. He fought 
with desperate valor amid a shower of arrows, 
and half-hidden by the smoke and flames of 
his burning palisades. One by one his com- 
panions fell, till he stood alone and wounded. 
Then, as his foes rushed forward, he fell head- 
long in the blazing fire. He died, yet it is said 
that in great crises he has again and again 
appeared urging men to courageous deeds. 

Across the river from Sing Sing is Point-no- 
Point, which, as its name indicates, is the 
bluntest sort of a promontory. Back of it, a 




Crotoyi River 



The Tappan Sea 99 

mile or more from the river, is Rockland Lake, 
a large sheet of water whence comes a con- 
siderable portion of the ice used in New York 
City. The ice is conveyed from the lake to the 
river by a cable railway, and continues its 
journey in huge barges. At Rockland Lake 
the ice business of the metropolis is said to have 
originated. The delivery of the first shipments 
that reached New York was made in springless, 
one-horse carts, and the entire capital invested 
in the business was at the start only two thousand 
dollars. 



VIII 

THE LAND OF IRVING 

TO a very large degree the peculiar senti- 
ment and romance that are associated 
with the Hudson are due to Washington Irving. 
The river may almost be said to have been 
discovered by him. He found a stream of 
wonderful beauty and of much fascination in 
its historic and legendary lore; but the beauty 
was uncelebrated, and the history and the 
legends unrecorded. It was his pen which popu- 
larized the romantic interest of "the river that he 
loved and glorified." Whether he was writing 
fiction or simply interpreting facts, in either case 
his lively imagination and gentle humor imparted 
an atmosphere that will always color the public 
impression of the region. He was born in 1783 
on the banks of the river, in the then small city 
which was gradually expanding northward from 
the lower end of Manhattan Island, and he 
died in 1859 at **Sunnyside," as he called the 
home he had established on the shores of the 
Tappan Sea. Sunnyside is rather less than 



The Land of Irving lOi 

a mile from the village of Irvington, which was 
so named in his honor a few years before his 

death. u U A 

Irving bought the place m 1835. He had 
returned from a sojourn of many years abroad 
with a desire to indulge in the pleasures of a 
real home of his own, where he could have quiet 
and enjoy the companionship of some of his 
near relatives. The place he chose was merely a 
ten-acre farm on which stood a small stone house. 
It had formerly belonged to a man named 
Wolfert Acker and was known as '^Wolfert's 
Roost," the latter word meaning rest. Irving's 
original intention was that the place should be 
nothing more than a summer retreat, inexpensive 
and simply furnished; but he did much more 
than he at first had in mind doing, and it 
became his permanent residence. He remodeled 
the cottage and it acquired a tower, and a 
whimsical weathervane said to have come from 
a windmill at the gate of Rotterdam in Holland. 
But whatever changes were made its quaint 
Dutch characteristics were carefully preserved 
and, as the author observed, it continued to be 
*'as'full of angles and corners as an old cocked 
hat." He made it one of the snuggest and 
most picturesque residences on the river. With 



102 The Picturesque Hudson 

its sheltering groves and secluded walks and 
grassy glades and its wide-reaching view of the 
river it was an ideal home for such a man of 
letters as Irving. In a short time it had become 
the dearest spot on earth to him, and he always 
left it with reluctance and returned to it with 
eager delight. 

Since Irving's time the house has been greatly 
enlarged, but the most characteristic portion 
of the old residence has been retained, and the 
newer part is in the rear, so that Sunnyside in 
its general aspect is the same as Irving left it. 
The coziness and retirement of the house are 
delightful. It is like a human bird's nest. The 
grounds are ample, with many old and lofty 
trees, and include a brook that courses down a 
rocky hollow and then lingers through the lush 
weeds and grasses of a little meadow. Between 
the knoll on which the house stands and the 
river, the railroad intervenes, but is for the 
most part screened from sight by a thick growth 
of trees. 

In telling the story of Wolfert's Roost, Irving 
says that the builder of the house, Wolfert 
Acker, "was a man whose aim through life had 
been to live in peace and quiet. For this he 
had emigrated from Hfelland, driven abroad by 



The Land of Irving 103 

family feuds and wrangling neighbors. It was 
his doom, in fact, to meet a head-wind at every 
turn, and to be kept in a constant fume and 
fret by the perverseness of mankind. Had he 
served on a modern jury, he would have been sure 
to have eleven unreasonable men opposed to 
him. Wolfert retired to this fastness in the 
wilderness, and inscribed over his door his 
favorite motto, ''Lust in Rust" (pleasure in 
quiet). The mansion was thence called Woi- 
fert's Rust, but by the uneducated who did not 
understand Dutch, Wolfert's Roost, probably 
from its having a weathercock perched on every 

gable. 

"Wolfert had brought with him a v^ife, and 
it soon passed into a proverb throughout the 
neighborhood that the cock of the Roost was 
the most henpecked bird in the country. His 
house, too, was reputed to be harassed by 
Yankee witchcraft. When the weather was 
quiet everywhere else, the wind, it was said, 
would howl about the gables; witches and 
warlocks would whirl on the weathercocks 
and scream down the chimneys; nay, it was 
even hinted that Wolfert's wife was in league 
with the enemy, and used to ride on a broom- 
stick to a witches' Sabbath in Sleepy Hollow. 



104 The Picturesque Hudson 

This, however, was all mere scandal, founded 
perhaps on her occasionally flourishing a broom- 
stick in the course of a curtain lecture, or raising 
a storm within doors, as termagant wives are 
apt to do." 

During the troublous time of the Revolution- 
ary War the Roost was the stronghold of Jacob 
Van Tassel. It stood between the British and 
American lines in the very heart of the de- 
batable ground, which was much infested by 
bandits. To make matters worse the Tappan 
Sea w^as domineered over by the foe. ** British 
ships of war were anchored here and there in 
the wide expanses of the river. Stout galleys 
armed with eighteen pounders, and navigated 
with sails and oars, cruised about like hawks, 
while rowboats made descents on the land, 
and foraged the country bordering the shore. 

"It was a sore grievance to the yeomanry 
along the Tappan Sea to behold that little 
Mediterranean ploughed by hostile prows, and 
the noble river of which they were so proud 
reduced to a state of thraldom. Councils of 
war were held to devise ways and means of dis- 
lodging the enemy. Here and there on a point 
of land, a mud-work would be thrown up, and 
an old fieldpiece mounted, with which a knot 



The Land of Irving 105 

of rustic artillerymen would fire away for a 
long summer's day at some frigate dozing at 
anchor far out of reach. 

"Jacob Van Tassel, stout of frame and bold 
of heart, was a prominent man in these opera- 
tions. On a row of hooks above the fireplace 
of the Roost reposed a goose-gun of unparalleled 
longitude, with which it was said he could kill 
a wild goose half way across the Tappan Sea. 
When the belligerent feeling was strong on 
Jacob, he would take down his gun and prowl 
along the shore, dodging behind rocks and 
trees, watching for hours together any ship or 
galley at anchor or becalmed, as a valorous 
mouser will watch a rat hole. So sure as a boat 
approached the shore, bang went the great 
goose-gun, sending on board a shower of slugs 
and buck-shot, and away scuttled Jacob Van 
Tassel through some woody ravine. As the 
Roost stood in a lonely situation, and might be 
attacked, he guarded against surprise by 
making loop-holes in the stone walls. His wife 
was as stout-hearted as himself, and could load 
as fast as he could fire; and his sister, a re- 
doubtable widow, was a match, as he said, for 
the stoutest man in the country. Thus garri- 
soned, his little castle was fitted to stand a siege, 



io6 The Picturesque Hudson 

and Jacob was die man to defend it to the last 
charge of powder. 

*'In the process of time the Roost became 
one of the secret stations of the Water Guard. 
This was an aquatic corps organized to range 
the waters of the Hudson, and keep watch on 
the movements of the enemy. It was composed 
of nautical men of the river, and hardy young- 
sters of the adjacent country, expert at pulling 
an oar or handling a musket. They were pro- 
vided with whale boats, long and sharp, and 
formed to lie lightly on the water, and be rowed 
with great rapidity. In these they would lurk 
out of sight by day, in nooks and bays, and 
behind points of land, keeping a sharp lookout 
on the British sliips. At night they rowed about 
in pairs, pulling quietly along with muffled 
oars, under the shadow of land, or gliding like 
specters about frigates and guard ships to cut 
off any boat that might be sent to shore. 

"At length Jacob Van Tassel in the course 
of one of his forays fell into the hands of the 
enemy and the Roost, as a pestilent rebel nest, 
was marked out for signal punishment. An 
armed vessel came to anchor in front; a boat 
full of men paddled to shore. The garrison flew 
to arms, that is to say, to mops, broomsticks, 



The Land of Irving 107 

shovels, tongs, and all kinds of domestic weapons 
— for unluckily the great goose-gun was absent 
with Its owner. Above all, a vigorous defense 
was made with that most potent of female 
weapons, the tongue. Never did invaded hen 
roost m.ake a more vociferous outcry. It was 
all in vain. The house was plundered, fire was 
set to each corner, and in a few moments its 
blaze shed a baleful light far over the Tappan 
Sea. 

*' Jacob was detained a prisoner In New York 
for the greater part of the war. In the mean- 
time the Roost remained a melancholy ruin. 
Its stone walls and brick chimneys alone stand- 
ing, the resort of bats and owls. When the 
war was over Jacob Van Tassel sought the 
scenes of his former triumphs and mishaps, 
rebuilt the Roost, restored his goose-gun to 
tlie hooks over the fireplace, and reared once 
more on high the glittering w^eathercocks. 

"The Roost still exists. The stout Jacob 
Van Tassel, it is true, sleeps with his fathers, 
yet his stronghold still bears the impress of Its 
Dutch origin. Odd rumors have gathered about 
It as they are apt to do about old mansions, like 
moss and vveather stains. The shade of Wol- 
fert Acker v/alks unquiet rounds at night in 



io8 The Picturesque Hudson 

the orchard; and a white figure has now and 
then been seen seated at a window and gazing 
at the moon, from a room in which a young 
lady is said to have died of love and green 
apples." 

Tarrytown, which formerly included Sunny- 
side within its boundaries is two miles to the 
north. It is a beautiful and long established 
place with considerable trade and manufactur- 
ing. The first two syllables of the name are said 
to have been metamorphosed from a Dutch 
word meaning wheat, which was a leading 
product of the district. Irving, however, fancies 
the name to have been bestowed by the house- 
wives of the adjacent region because their 
husbands were prone to linger at the village 
tavern on market days. 

During the War of the Revolution, Tarry- 
town, like other hamlets within the neutral 
territory was overridden and pillaged, and 
property and life were in constant hazard. One 
exciting episode has to do with two sloops that 
were going down the Hudson loaded with powder 
and arms for the American army. They dis- 
covered several British warships approaching 
from the opposite direction and hastily put into 
Tarrytown where they were cornered by the 



The Land of Irving 109 

enemy. A few American soldiers who were in 
the town worked with great spirit to help 
unload the stores from the sloops, in spite of a 
galling fire from the British frigates. Even 
when two of the enemy's gunboats and four 
barges crept in to destroy the fugitive vessels 
Captain Hurlburt with twelve of his brave 
troopers armed only with swords and pistols, 
resisted till the last possible moment. But in the 
end they were driven away. The British had 
no sooner set the sloops on fire and retired, 
however, than the intrepid Hurlburt and his 
men swam out to the burning vessels and ex- 
tinguished the flames. Their superlative hero- 
ism is evident when the nature of the cargoes is 
remembered and the risk of explosion. 

The most notable of all historic events in 
this part of the Hudson Valley was the capture 
of Major Andre — a capture which was a tragic 
climax both in his life and in that of Benedict 
Arnold. Incidents began to take a trend that 
led to the melancholy involving of these two 
back in the summer of 1778. Arnold was at 
that time placed in command of Philadelphia, 
where his blunt and self-willed methods created 
a good deal of irritation, and where his extrava- 
gant style of living was an oflfence in view of 



no The Picturesque Hudson 

the distressed condition of the country. No 
one in that city kept a finer stable of horses 
or gave more costly dinners than General Arnold. 
He also engaged in commercial speculations and 
ran in debt. At the same time he courted and 
afterward married the reigning belle in the city, 
one of the most beautiful and fascinating 
women in America. She was scarcely twenty 
and he was a widower of thirty-five, with three 
sons, but his reputation, his gallant bearing and 
handsome face won the lady. Her father was 
a prominent Tory. This had an influence in 
making Arnold less warm in the patriot cause. 
Besides, his treatment by Congress had been 
far from generous and his manner of life had 
led to his being in great need of money. So in 
April, 1779, he wrote under an assumed name 
to the English General Clinton describing him- 
self as an American officer of high rank, who 
through disgust at recent proceedings of Con- 
gress might be persuaded to go over to the 
British, provided he was indemnified for any 
losses he might incur by so doing. Clinton 
responded, and the correspondence continued 
for some time until Arnold gradually determined 
to obtain the command of an important post, 
by the surrender of which the country would be 




^ 
5 



^ 



-C: 






Co 



The Land of Irving iii 

carried back to its old allegiance. The result 
was that he sought and obtained from Wash- 
ington, who had always been his warm friend, 
the command of West Point. Could this vital 
position be delivered to Clinton the British 
would gain what Burgoyne failed to get — the 
control of the Hudson. Thus Arnold, the hero 
of Saratoga, planned to undo the good work he 
had done for the American cause on that famous 
battlefield scarcely more than a hundred miles 
distant. 

A portion of the British army in New York at 
length embarked ready to go up the Hudson, 
and the sloop-of-war Vulture was sent on 
ahead bearing Major Andre for a personal con- 
ference with Arnold. On September tvv^enty- 
first, toward midnight, a boat, rowed by two 
men with muffled oars, came gliding silently 
to the side of the Vulture. In the stern sat 
Joshua Hett Smith, a local inhabitant whom 
Arnold had prevailed on to go to the British 
vessel and "get a person who was coming from 
New York with important intelligence." He re- 
turned to the shore with Andre, and in the still 
starlight they landed at the foot of a shadowy 
mountain called the Long Clove — a solitary place, 
the haunt of the owl and the whip-poor-will. 



112 The Picturesque Hudson 

Arnold was in waiting among the thickets. 
He had come thither on horseback accom- 
panied by a mounted servant from Smith's 
house, which was about two miles below Stony 
Point on the upland overlooking Haverstraw 
Bay. While Arnold and Andre were conferring, 
Smith remained in the boat and the servant 
withdrew to a distance with the horses. Hour 
after hour passed, and at length Smith ap- 
proached the place of conference and gave 
warning that it was near daybreak, and the 
boat would soon be in danger of detection. As 
the bargain was not yet completed, it was 
arranged that Andre should remain on shore 
till the following night, and the boat was sent 
to a creek higher up the river. Andre mounted 
the servant's horse and set off with Arnold for 
Smith's house. They had scarcely entered it 
when they were startled by the booming of 
cannon. The Vulture was being fired on from 
the opposite shore, and Andre was dismayed to 
see the vessel retire down the stream. However, 
it was certain that she would not go far, and 
negotiations with Arnold were presently re- 
sumed in an upper chamber. It was agreed that 
immediately on Andre's return to New York 
the British were to ascend the river in force. 



The Land of Irving 113 

To obstruct such hostile approach an enormous 
chain had been stretched across the river; but 
under pretence of repairs, one hnk was to be 
taken out for a few days and its place suppHed 
by a rope which would easily break. The 
defendant forces were to be so distributed that 
they could be captured in detail, until Arnold, 
taking advantage of the apparent defeat, was 
to surrender the works and his entire command 
of three thousand men. 

Arnold gave Andre six papers, all but one of 
them in his own handwriting, containing de- 
scriptions of the fortresses and the disposal of 
the troops. Andre concealed them between his 
stockings and the soles of his feet, and about 
noon Arnold departed to go in his barge ten 
miles upstream to his headquarters at a mansion 
across the river from West Point. As evening 
approached Andre prepared to return to the 
Vulture. He expected Smith to take him in 
the boat, but Smith had been alarmed by the 
firing in the morning and thought this would 
entail more risk than to try to reach the British 
lines by land. So the young officer partially 
disguised himself in some of Smith's clothes, and 
the two crossed the river at King's Ferry, and 
pursued their journey on horseback. This 



114 The Picturesque Hudson 

region between the opposing forces, with its 
forest-clad hills, fertile vales and abundant 
streams, was naturally very beautiful and pros- 
perous; but it was now much infested by 
robbers, one set of whom was known as the 
"Cowboys" because they were partial to carry- 
ing off cattle, and another set as ''Skinners," 
because they took everything they could find. 
The former fought, or rather marauded, under 
the Americans; the latter, under the British 
banner. In the zeal of service, both were apt to 
make blunders and confound the property of 
friend and foe. Neither of them in the heat 
and hurry of a foray had time to ascertain the 
politics of a horse or a cow which they were 
driving off; nor when they wrung the neck of a 
rooster, did they concern themselves whether 
he crowed for Congress or King George. By 
these the country had been desolated, houses 
were plundered and dismantled, and inclosures 
broken down, so that the fields lay waste and 
the roads were grass-grown. 

To check the enormities of the marauders a 
confederacy was formed among the yeomanry 
who had suffered from them. It was composed 
for the most part of farmers' sons, bold, hard- 
riding lads, well-armed and well-mounted, and 



The Land of Irving 115 

they undertook to clear the region of "Skinners" 
and "Cowboys" and all other border vermin. 

The more Andre's guide meditated on the state 
of affairs roundabout, the more fearful he became 
of trouble, and he presently obliged his impatient 
companion to stop for the night at a farm- 
house. Before dawn they were on their way 
again, and when they reached the Croton River 
which marked the upper boundary of the 
neutral ground between the contestants. Smith 
left Andre to go on alone while he made his 
way back to Arnold's headquarters and reported 
that he had escorted his charge to a point whence 
he could reach the British lines with ease and 
safety. 

Andre struck into a road that led through 
Tarrytown, but it happened that certain local 
residents had set out that morning to waylay a 
party of "Cowboys," and as Andre approached 
the village and came to a place where a small 
stream crossed the road and ran into a woody 
dell, a man stepped forth from the bushes and 
confronted him with a leveled musket. Two 
other men similarly armed also showed them- 
selves, prepared to second their comrade. 

The leader of the three was John Paulding. 
His career of late had abounded in excitement. 



ii6 The Picturesque Hudson 

Not long before, while caUing on a young 
woman to v/hom he was attentive, he had been 
attacked by a number of Tories, including the 
lady's brother. He took refuge in a barn from 
which he fired on his assailants, wounding some 
of them. That made them keep their distance 
and parley for his surrender. He finally gave 
himself up and was turned over to the British 
and imprisoned in New York. But he managed 
to escape, and, aided by a negress who disguised 
him in the green coat of a Hessian soldier, he 
reached the American lines. A few days later, 
still wearing the same conspicuous garment, he 
and his two comrades halted Major Andre. 
This they did because he was a stranger about 
whose purposes they had doubts. The Hessian 
coat led Andre to think they were friends of 
the cause he represented, and he avowed him- 
self to be a British officer travelling on important 
business. To his dismay, Paulding said that 
they were Americans, and seizing the bridle of 
his horse ordered him to dismount. Andre, 
who had now recovered his self-possession, 
endeavored to pass off his previous account of 
himself as a subterfuge. He declared himself 
to be a messenger from General Arnold and 
showed them a pass written by that officer. But 



The Land of Irving 117 

his captors insisted on searching his person and 
obHged him to take off his coat and vest. They 
found nothing of any consequence, and would 
have let him proceed had not Paulding said, 
"Boys, I am not satisfied — his boots must 

come off." 

At this Andre changed color and protested 
that his boots came off with difficulty and 
begged that he might not be subjected to such 
inconvenience and delay. His remonstrances 
were in vain. He was obliged to sit down, his 
boots were removed, and the concealed papers 
discovered. Paulding looked them over and 
exclaimed, "He is a spy!" 

Andre offered ten guineas to be allowed to 
pursue his journey but Paulding responded, 'Tt 
you offered ten thousand guineas you could not 
stir one step." 

The young men took him up the river and 
delivered him to Colonel Jameson in command 
at North Castle. This officer did not clearly 
comprehend the entire purport of the papers, 
and not only sent word of the capture to Wash- 
ington but also to Arnold. The latter was at 
the breakfast table with Alexander Hamilton 
and other members of Washington's staff when 
the courier entered and handed him Jameson's 



Ii8 The Picturesque Hudson 

letter. With astonishing presence of mind he 
glanced at the letter, put it in his pocket and 
finished the remark he had been making. Then, 
rising, he said that he was suddenly called 
across the river to West Point, and ordered his 
barge to be manned. His wife detected some- 
thing unusual in his manner, and as he left the 
room she hurried after him to their chamber. 
He told her he was a ruined man and must fly 
for his life; and when she screamed and fainted 
in his arms he laid her on the bed, kissed his 
baby boy sleeping in the cradle, ran to the yard, 
leaped on the horse of the messenger which 
stood saddled at the door, and galloped down 
a bypath to his six-oared barge. The oarsmen 
were soon pulling him down the river. It 
seemed probable that the Vulture would still 
be waiting for Andre somewhere below, and a 
brisk row of eighteen miles brought him to that 
vessel. The commander was wondering at 
Andre's long absence. When he understood 
what had happened he weighed anchor and 
sailed for New York. 

A few days later Andre was taken across the 
river to Tappan where he was tried by a military 
commission who sentenced him to death as a 
spy. He was a man of varied and graceful 




^ 



V. 



^ 






^ 



^ 



b^ 



The Land of Irving ii9 

talents-a poet, a musician, an artist-and his 
engaging manners made him universally liked, 
but on October second he was hanged. His 
remains were buried at Tappan near the spot 
where he was executed, and there remained 
until 1 82 1 when they were disinterred and 
removed to Westminster Abbey. His fate 
appeals strongly to the sympathies, yet it appears 
doubtful if either his career or his melancholy 
death called for this final distinction. 

Arnold's reward for his treachery was six 
thousand pounds and a brigadiership in the 
British army. Within three months he was 
sent on a marauding expedition into Virginia 
where he one day asked a captain whom he had 
captured, "What do you think would be my 
fate if my misguided countrymen were to take 

me prisoner ?" 

-They would cut off the leg that was wounded 
at Saratoga and bury it with the honors of war, 
and the rest of you they would hang on a gibbet, 

was the reply. 

After the war ended Arnold and his wife 
made England their home. Their descendants 
have since won for themselves an honorable 
place there, but Arnold himself, disgraced and 
almost friendless, died miserably in London in 



120 The Picturesque Hudson 

1801. It is said that he had always kept the 
uniform he wore at the time he escaped to the 
Vulture and that when he felt his last moments 
coming he put it on and said, "Let me die in 
this old uniform in which I fought my battles. 
May God forgive me for wearing any other!" 

The monument that marks the vicinity of 
Andre's capture is on Broadway, a continuation 
of the same Broadway that starts at the lower 
end of New York City. It is in the fine residence 
section of Tarrytown, and its surroundings have 
lost all rustic simplicity and are no aid to the 
imagination in conjuring up the scene as it 
was when the spy was captured. This capture 
took place beneath a great whitewood which 
afterward was known as the Andre tree, and 
on the very day that Arnold died this tree is 
said to have been struck by lightning. 

A short walk farther on is the famous Sleepy 
Hollow, described by Irving as, *'a little valley 
or rather a lap of land among high hills, which 
is one of the quietest places in the whole world. 
A small brook glides through it, with just 
murmur enough to lull one to repose, and the 
occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a 
woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever 
breaks in on the uniform tranquillity. 



The Land of Irving 121 

"Here were small farms, each having Its 
little portion of meadow and cornfield; Its 
orchard of gnarled and sprawling apple trees; 
its garden in which the rose, the marigold, and 
hollyhock, grew sociably with the cabbage, 
the pea and the pumpkin; each had its low- 
eaved mansion redundant with children, with 
an old hat nailed against the wall for the house- 
keeping wren, and a coop on the grass plot where 
the motherly hen clucked to her vagrant broods; 
each had its stone well, with a moss-covered 
bucket suspended from the long balancing pole, 
while within doors resounded the eternal hum 
of the spinning wheel." 

The valley is now suburban, and the placid 
old Dutch homesteads have disappeared. The 
bridge where Ichabod Crane came to grief 
when pursued by the headless horseman is no 
longer a rude wooden structure in a deep 
ravine overhung by trees and vines, but is a 
substantial arch of stone, across which runs a 
broad, exposed highway. Down the stream are 
the ruins of a mill and the ancient Philipse 
manor-house, but the most satisfying relic of 
the past is the little Dutch church on a knoll 
above the bridge. This was erected about 
1690, and is now the oldest church building in 



122 The Picturesque Hudson 

use in New York State, and one of the quaintest 
and best preserved historic buildings on this 
continent. Its walls are two feet thick. They 
are partly of the rough country stone and partly 
of brick brought from Holland. Not till after 
the Revolution was English substituted for 
Dutch in the services. 

"A weathercock graced each end of the 
church," says Irving, in recording his early 
memories of the building, "one perched over the 
belfry, the other over the chancel. As usual 
with ecclesiastical weathercocks, each pointed 
a different way; and there was a perpetual 
contradiction between them on all points of 
windy doctrine. 

"The congregation was of a truly rural 
character. Dutch sunbonnets and honest home- 
spun still prevailed. Everything was in primi- 
tive style, even to the bucket of water and tin 
cup near the door in summer to assuage the 
thirst caused by the heat of the weather and the 
drought of the sermon. 

"The drowsy influence of Sleepy Hollow was 
apt to breathe into this sacred edifice; and now 
and then an elder might be seen with his hand- 
kerchief over his face to keep off the flies, and 
apparently listening to the dominie; but really 







Co 






The Land of Irving 123 

sunk Into a summer slumber, lulled by the sultry 
notes of the locusts In the neighboring trees." 

The church Is surrounded by the graves of 
many generations — those of the early settlers 
clustering thickly about the edifice, while 
the newer graves overspread the long slope 
rising beyond. One grave with a peculiar 
interest Is that of Captain John Buckout, who 
with his wife Sarah, could count two hundred 
and forty children and grandchildren — a state- 
ment graven large on his tombstone. Near the 
summit of the hill Is Irvlng's grave, and a well- 
beaten path leads from the church to where he 
rests amid the scenes which his magic pen has 
made famous. 



IX 

HAVERSTRAW AND STONY POINT 

THE ferries on the Hudson between New 
York and Albany average about twenty 
miles apart, and often when I wanted to go 
from one side to some place directly opposite, 
my choice lay between a long and inconvenient 
journey around, or hiring a special conveyance. 
Thus it happened that I voyaged to Haver- 
straw by motor boat from a village on the 
east shore. The river here is at its widest 
— four miles is the official figure, but my 
skipper called it five and I suppose charged 
accordingly. The sun had set, and the western 
haze was suflFused with color. As we cut rapidly 
through the water the shore toward which we 
were going became less vague and I could see 
the clustering buildings of a town with lofty 
hills of irregular outline behind. The most 
conspicuous peak in this range of hills is known 
as High Tor, and a local legend relates that 
one of the wise men of the East long ago found 
his way to America and on the summit of 



Haverstraw and Stony Point 125 

High Tor built an altar. This aroused the 
Indians to demand that he should worship as 
they did, and when he refused, they were so 
enraged that they prepared to attack and kill 
him. But he was saved by a miracle — for an 
earthquake opened a great gaping crack in the 
earth and engulfed his enemies. This crack 
is the channel through which the Hudson now 
flows. 

At the edge of the Haverstraw shore, for fully 
two miles, there is an almost continuous row 
of rough, wide-spreading sheds used by the 
brickmakers, and from many of them the smoke 
was lazily rising. On their landward side the 
clay sediment, which had been deposited in 
this nook in the bygone time when the stream 
was wider and deeper than now, has been re- 
moved leaving a vast hollow. The workers 
even build coffer dams out into the river to 
rescue the valuable brick clay. Much more 
than half of all the brick made along the whole 
course of the river comes from here. The clay 
has been excavated in places till the buildings 
of the town are close to the precipitous bank, 
and their situation seems in some instances 
decidedly perilous. 



126 The Picturesque Hudson 

One autumn afternoon a few years ago a 
Haverstraw policeman noticed that the walls 
of a brick building near the edge of an 
excavation were cracking, and he saw a loosened 
brick fall out. He went to the owner of the 
property and told him there was going to be a 
landslide; and as the clay there had been taken 
out to a depth of one hundred and eighty feet 
the prospect was quite disturbing. Warning 
was given to the families that lived in the 
threatened neighborhood, but they had dwelt 
so long in the vicinity of the danger that they 
thought the alarm needless and went to bed as 
usual. About midnight, however, the clay 
bank gave way carrying down houses and people 
into the frightful chasm. Rescuers were soon 
on hand, and they were busy amidst the debris 
when there was a second slide that overwhelmed 
everyone in its path. The wreckage caught on 
fire, and the scene of devastation was brightly 
lighted. About a dozen houses had gone down 
into the depths and a score of lives were lost. 
Among those who perished were a father and 
mother. When the first houses slid into the 
chasm theirs hung on the verge and they had 
time to take their children to a point of safety. 
That done they went back to get their bank 



Haverstraw and Stony Point 127 

book. They were never seen afterward and not 
even their bodies were recovered. 

This experience of the town would seem to 
have been severe enough to make sure of 
adequate precautions for the future; yet the 
clay diggers still take chances, and in places 
the great excavation is creeping dangerously 
near certain streets. Indeed, predictions are 
made that Haverstraw will presently have 
another appalling catastrophe. 

Not far north of the town is the Joshua Hett 
Smith house on "Treason Hill" where Arnold 
and Andre completed their nefarious bargain. 
I had an impression that the hill would be a 
barren and blasted tract, and that the house 
would be gloomy and forbidding; but on the 
contrary the upland is pleasantly pastoral, fine 
trees are plentiful, and the house is a simple 
but attractive mansion commanding a wide 
view of the valley. 

Two miles farther on, where Stony Point 
thrusts its rugged headland out into the river, 
the broad Haverstraw Bay ends and the stream 
is scarcely a half mile wide. The projecting 
shore opposite is Verplank's Point. Here in 
Colonial days was King's Ferry, the greatest 
public ferry on the Hudson. It was extremely 



128 The Picturesque Hudson 

useful in the mihtary movements of the Conti- 
nental Army, and partly for its defence and 
partly to prevent the enemy's ships from passing 
up the river fortifications v^ere started in 1779 on 
the two Points to command the narrow channel. 

The British were about to make a supreme 
effort to gain control of the Hudson, and Sir 
Henry Clinton with a detachment of troops 
landed at Haverstraw and marched against 
Stony Point. Workmen were building redoubts 
on its summit and occupied a blockhouse there. 
At the approach of the enemy they set fire to 
the blockhouse and fled to the hills. Sir Henry 
took possession, and during the night artillery 
was landed, and with vast exertion was dragged 
up and mounted in the empty embrasures. At 
daylight a cannonade was opened on the Point 
across the river, which v/as at the same time 
assailed by troops from the rear, and compelled 
to surrender. 

The British immediately took up the work 
started by the Americans and completed the 
redoubts on Stony Point and armed them so 
stoutly as to make it "a little Gibraltar," which 
they boasted was impregnable. The garrison 
consisted of six hundred men. 



mv-'Mm 











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Haverstraw and Stony Point 129 

Washington realized that the British capture 
and retention of this stronghold would have a 
depressing effect on the sentiment of the country, 
and, more important still, he wanted to strike a 
blow that would cause a marauding party that 
was devastating Connecticut to be withdrawn. 
He discussed the possibility of dislodging the 
invaders with his officers and asked General 
Anthony Wayne if he would attempt to storm it. 

"I'll storm hell, sir, if you'll make the plans," 
was Wayne's reply. 

So the enterprise was entrusted to ''Mad 
Anthony," a nickname bestowed on him by the 
soldiers because of his desperate bravery. His 
madness W3S by no means blind and rash, for 
he was equipped with quick eyes and a cool head 
as well as with impetuous valor. 

The rocky, precipitous Point was two hundred 
feet high, and was washed on three sides by the 
waters of the Hudson. On the fourth side it 
was separated from the mainland by a deep 
morass over which ran a single causeway that 
was covered at high tide. Twelve hundred 
men were placed at Wayne's disposal and he 
prepared for a night assault. Every dog within 
three miles was killed that no warning bark 
might alarm the garrison, and not a gun was 



130 The Picturesque Hudson 

loaded lest an untimely shot should betray their 
approach. The officers were ordered to put to 
death instantly any man who should attempt 
to load his musket or break from the ranks. 
Bayonets were to be the chief dependence. 
Until within a few months this weapon had 
been lightly valued by the American soldiers. 
They did not know how to use it and often 
threw it away, or merely retained it as a cooking 
utensil, holding on its point the beef they roasted 
before their camp fires. But a change had come 
owing to the training of Baron Steuben who 
the year before had become inspector-general 
of the army, and now Wayne's men were about 
to make one of the most spirited bayonet 
charges known to history. 

At midnight, the fifteenth of July, they were 
close to the Point in two columns ready for 
the work that had been planned. Each com- 
pany was preceded by a squad of twenty men 
with axes who were to clear away obstructions. 
Every individual in the force had a piece of 
white paper attached to his hat to distinguish 
him from the enemy in the darkness. One 
column, with General Wayne at its head, turned 
to the right and crossed the marsh, still flooded 
with some two feet of tide. They thus got 



Haverstraw and Stony Point 131 

around the abattis that protected the western 
base of the slope and gained the beach on the 
south side of the Point. The other column 
crossed a half-ruined bridge to attack from the 
opposite direction. These movements were 
quickly discovered by the enemy's pickets, and 
the garrison was aroused and fully ready for 
defense on all sides by the time the Americans 
began to climb the height. The redcoats filled 
every niche among the rocks on the slope and 
poured down a constant fire of musketry and 
bad language; but Wayne's rush was rapid and 
irresistible. The assailants came up the slope 
so swiftly that they suffered little loss, and 
shoulder to shoulder pressed over the w^orks, 
heedless of obstacles. Wayne stood by directing 
the movement when a bullet struck him a 
glancing blow on the forehead. He fell to the 
ground stunned; but soon recovered sufficiently 
to raise himself on one knee and shout, ''For- 
ward, my brave fellows, forward!" 

Then he called on two of his officers to carry 
him into the works where he desired to die, in 
case his wound proved fatal. The fight was 
over within twenty minutes from the time it 
began and the garrison surrendered. The 



132 The Picturesque Hudson 

British lost sixty-two killed, and the Americans 
fifteen. 

As soon as daylight came the guns of the cap- 
tured fortress were turned against the ships in 
the offing, which cut their cables and slipped 
out of range. About sixty of the garrison made 
their escape in boats to the other side of the river. 
Five American deserters were found in the fort; 
three of whom were hanged with little ceremony. 

Money rewards and medals were given to 
Wayne and the leaders in the assault. The 
ordnance and stores captured were appraised 
at nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Con- 
gress paid for them and the money was dis- 
tributed among the troops engaged. 

The news of the victory caused universal 
rejoicing and revival of courage, and the British 
raiders in Connecticut were hastily withdrawn. 
A large force of the enemy was dispatched from 
New York to recover the fort, and the Americans 
abandoned it after holding it only three days. 
Meanwhile the works had been destroyed and 
the garrison with the cannon and stores removed 
into the Highlands. 

In October the British in their turn abandoned 
not only Stony Point but Verplank's Point and 
the "rebels" reopened King's Ferry. 







^ 






t^ 



Haverstraw and Stony Point 133 

Stony Point is today the same rough promon- 
tory it was then. The sides are wooded, but 
the crest of the ridge has much open grassy 
land where one can trace remnants of the old 
earthworks, and where, from favored spots 
one gets beautiful views up and down the river. 
It will always be hallowed ground to every true 
American, and very properly has been made a 
public park to preserve it for all time. 



X 

THE HIGHLANDS 

T?OR twenty miles, between Peekskill and 
-*- Cornwall, the Hudson plays hide and seek 
with the ancient rock-ribbed hills and mountains. 
The river scenery here is at its finest and often 
attains to real sublimity, especially if observed 
by moonlight or on mysterious days of haze, or 
when a storm sweeps over the rugged heights. 
None of the mountains are particularly lofty, 
for the highest is not much more than fifteen 
hundred feet, but they lift so steeply and mas- 
sively from the river borders that they are far 
more imposing than many a mountain that 
soars to a much greater altitude in a different 
situation. A railroad skirts the water's edge 
on either side of the stream, now and then dart- 
ing through a tunnel or dodging behind a rocky 
wall, but on the whole affording a delightful 
impression of the scenery. All the large timber 
was long ago taken from the mountains, and 
the newer trees are cut as soon as they become 
of useful size; but as no fires have swept through 



The Highlands 135 

the woodland for many years It appears from 
a distance like the original forest. 

Peekskill, at the southern gateway to the 
Highlands, is a pretty town half hidden in a 
ravine, half scrambling up the sides of steep 
green slopes where several brooks come down 
into a quiet bay. There is an interesting story 
that the first settler of the town was a Dutch 
navigator, Captain Jans Peek, who got stuck 
in the mud here, soon after the voyage of Henry 
Hudson, and spent the remainder of his life in 
contentment by the faithless stream which he 
had mistaken for the main river. The creek 
came to be called Peek's Kill in consequence. 
Troops were quartered in the town from time 
to time during the Revolution, and at one 
period General Israel Putnam was in command. 
Here he caught the spy. Palmer, and wrote 
that famous note to a British officer, who inter- 
posed in the spy's behalf: — 

''Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's 
service, was taken as a spy, lurking within our 
lines. He has been tried as a spy, condemned 
as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy." 

Two hours later he added to the note, '*P. S. 
He is hanged." 



136 The Picturesque Hudson 

Less than three miles away are Gallows Hill 
with its folk lore and Revolutionary legends, 
and the Wayside Inn, where Andre tarried after 
his arrest. In the east room of the old hostelry 
are yet shown the marks his military boots 
made as he restlessly paced up and down its 
narrow limits. Among the famous men who 
have had summer homes at Peekskill should be 
mentioned the great pulpit orator, Henry 
Ward Beecher. 

Over on the west shore of the bay rises the 
Dunderberg, or Thunder Mount, and less than 
three miles to the north the river runs between 
two other wild, brushy heights — Bear Hill and 
Anthony's Nose. The next conspicuous moun- 
tain is Sugar Loaf; and beyond West Point is 
the grandest group of all including Crow Nest 
and Storm King, Mount Taurus and Breakneck. 

It used to be currently believed by the settlers 
along the river that the Highlands were under 
the dominion of supernatural and mischievous 
beings, who had taken some pique against 
the Dutch colonists in the early time of the 
settlement. In consequence of this it was their 
particular delight to vent their spleen, and 
indulge their humors on the Dutch skippers; 
bothering them with flaws, head winds, counter 



The Highlands 137 

currents, and all kinds of impediments, inso- 
much that a Dutch navigator was always obliged 
to be exceedingly wary and deliberate in his 
proceedings. 

The captains of the river craft were especially 
fearful of a little goblin who haunted the neigh- 
borhood of the Dunderberg, wearing trunk hose 
and a sugar-loaf hat, and carrying a speaking 
trumpet in his hand. They declared that they 
had heard him in stormy weather, in the midst 
of the turmoil, giving orders for the piping up 
of a fresh gust of wind, or the rattling off of 
another thunder-clap; that sometimes he had 
been seen surrounded by a crew of little imps 
in broad breeches and short doublets, tumbling 
head over heels in the rack and mist, and play- 
ing a thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing 
like a swarm of flies about Anthony's Nose; and 
that at such times, the hurry-scurry of the storm 
was always greatest. One time a sloop, in 
passing by the Dunderberg, was overtaken by 
a thunder-gust that came scouring round the 
mountain, and seemed to burst just over the 
vessel. Though tight and well ballasted, she 
labored dreadfully and the water came over 
the gunwale. All the crew were amazed when 
it was discovered that there was a little white 



138 The Picturesque Hudson 

sugar-loaf hat on the masthead, known at once 
to be the hat of the Heer of the Dunderberg. 
The sloop continued laboring and rocking, as 
if she would have rolled her mast overboard, 
and seemed in continual danger either of up- 
setting or of running on shore. In this way 
she drove quite through the Highlands, until 
she had passed Pollopel's Island, where, it is 
said, the jurisdiction of the Dunderberg potentate 
ceases. No sooner had she passed this bourn, 
than the little hat spun up into the air like a 
top, whirled all the clouds into a vortex, and 
hurried them back to the summit of the Dunder- 
berg, while the sloop righted herself and sailed 
on as quietly as if in a mill pond. Nothing saved 
her from utter wreck but the fortunate circum- 
stance of having a horseshoe nailed against the 
mast — a wise precaution against evil spirits, 
since adopted by all the Dutch captains that 
navigate this haunted river. 

There is another story told of this foul- 
weather urchin by Skipper Daniel Ouselsticker 
of P'ishkill, who was never known to tell a lie. 
He declared that in a severe squall he saw the 
Dunderberg goblin seated astride of his bow- 
sprit, riding the sloop ashore, full butt against 
Anthony's Nose, and that he was exorcised by 



The Highlands 139 

Dominie Van Gieson, of Esopus, who happened 
to be on board, and who sang the hymn of St. 
Nicholas; whereupon the goblin threw himself 
up in the air like a ball, and went off in a whirl- 
wind. With him he carried the nightcap of 
the Dominie's wife, which was discovered the 
next Sunday morning hanging on the weather- 
cock of Esopus church steeple, at least forty 
miles off! Several events of this kind having 
taken place, the regular skippers of the river, 
for a long time, did not venture to pass the 
Dunderberg without lowering their peaks, out 
of homage to the Heer of the Mountain; and it 
was observed that all such as paid this tribute 
of respect were allowed to pass unmolested. 

Where the base of the Dunderberg stretches 
out into the river is Kidd's Point, so called be- 
cause the renowned pirate is said to have sailed 
up the river this far to secrete some of his treasure. 
So the ground has been dug over and over in 
search of this mythical wealth. 

A few years ago the captain of one of the 
river craft anchored near the foot of the moun- 
tain, and when he was ready to resume his 
course, he found that the anchor was caught in 
something heavy. But by dint of great effort 
it was brought to the surface, and along with it 



140 The Picturesque Hudson 

came a small cannon. One might naturally 
infer that this cannon had belonged to some 
British war vessel; but instead it was gravely 
proclaimed to be a relic of Captain Kidd. Then 
a speculator worked up enough enthusiastic 
interest to collect twenty-two thousand dollars, 
for the purpose of securing the vast riches that 
everyone knew must lie there on the river bottom 
where the cannon had been found. Vague 
rumors were in circulation about a sunken ship, 
the deck of which had been bored through with 
a long auger, and when the auger was with- 
drawn it brought up pieces of silver in its thread. 
A coffer-dam was built, and a powerful pump 
established over the supposed resting place of 
the pirate ship and the work went merrily on 
until the funds ran low. Then faith began to 
waver and the enterprise collapsed. 

Between the Dunderberg and Bear Mount 
winds an ancient road, on which the British 
and the Continental soldiers marched back and 
forth in the Revolutionary War. Reminiscent 
of that time, is the village of Doodletown back 
in the hills. The place got its name in jocular 
reference to the ''Yankee Doodle boys,'' as the 
patriot soldiers were sometimes called. 




"^ 



Itm 



The Highlands 141 

Then, too, there is Bloody Pond, or Highland 
Lake, on the shores of which tradition declares 
that several Hessians were killed and their 
bodies thrown into its gloomy waters. Old 
residents of the vicinity say that even now, on 
overcast and windy nights in midsummer, 
ghostly apparitions in helmets and stout riding 
boots may be seen flitting across the dark bosom 
of the pond, and that there floats to the frightened 
ear the whispering of commands in a strange 
tongue and the faint rattle of sabres and harness. 

Anthony's Nose is a long ridge sloping down 
to the river from the east, and pierced at the 
tip by a railway tunnel. The explanation of its 
extraordinary name is that in colonial days a 
vessel was one day passing up the river under 
the command of Captain Anthony Hogan. As 
it approached this mountain the mate was 
impressed that the profile of the mountain and 
the shape of the captain's nose, which was 
notable for its vigorous prominence, bore a rather 
striking resemblance to each other. As he 
glanced back and forth comparing them the 
captain caught the drift of his thoughts and 
said, *'What! does that mountain look like my 
nose ? Call it then, if you please, Anthony's 
Nose." 



142 The Picturesque Hudson 

As we go on up the river we at length come 
to the bold plateau of West Point, with its 
shaggy cliffs reaching out into the stream, and 
overlooked from the rear by wooded heights. 
It was Washington who first suggested this 
place as a desirable situation for a United States 
Military Academy. The Academy may be said 
to have begun its existence in 1802; yet until 
181 1 it lived **at a poor dying rate" and in the 
latter year had not a single cadet. 

But with the beginning of the second war 
with England the legislators awoke to the 
necessity of making the institution an effective 
aid in furnishing trained leaders for the future 
needs of the army. Admirable work was done 
in the years that followed, and the graduates 
at length tested the value of their instruction 
under the skies of Mexico, where in two cam- 
paigns '*we conquered a great country and won 
peace without the loss of a single battle or 
skirmish." 

The corps of cadets numbers between three 
and four hundred. They room together in 
twos. The furniture of each apartment is con- 
fined to the bare necessities, and each cadet is 
required to make his own bed and keep his 
quarters tidy. He is aroused at six o'clock in 



The Highlands 143 

the morning by the drums. Twenty minutes 
later his room must be in order, bedding folded 
and wash bowl inverted. Woe betide him if he 
is dilatory. A superior visits him and reports 
his delinquency, or, as the lad would say, 
*' skins" him. Breakfast is eaten between half- 
past six and seven. From eight o'clock until 
noon he is busy with recitations, class parades 
and other duties. Then he has two hours for 
dinner and recreation. Academic work is over 
at four o'clock, and the rest of the day is occu- 
pied by drills, amusements and dress parade. 
Lights are extinguished in quarters at ten, and 
the cadet is supposed to go to sleep. 

It is doubtful if he always does so. Stories 
of stealthy midnight expeditions for the purpose 
of hazing some unfortunate youngster, or to 
enjoy tlie mysterious edible mixed in a wash- 
basin and known as "cadet hash," form a part 
of the traditions of the Point. But these offenses 
against discipline are less frequent than for- 
merly. A better sentiment has grown up as to 
hazing, and even the wildest spirits thoroughly 
appreciate their privileges and responsibilities. 
The restriction of the cadet to "limits," which 
by no means include the whole of the reservation, 
and his total lack of money are powerful ob- 



144 The Picturesque Hudson 

stacles to forbidden pleasures. He is paid 
forty-five dollars a month; but every penny 
of it is spent for him by the quartermaster and 
commissary officers, and he is permitted to 
receive no cash whatever from home or any- 
where else. He does not even have pockets in 
his trousers. The cadets all stand on their own 
merits, and parental position or wealth count 
for nothing. As a matter of fact the fathers of 
the majority of the cadets are wage-earners. 

There are nearly two hundred buildings of 
all sorts. Some of the newer ones are strikingly 
big and beautiful. Conspicuous on the north 
side of the plain, where there is a noble view up 
the river, stands the tall graceful shaft of the 
Battle Monument, which was erected in mem- 
ory of the two thousand two hundred and 
thirty members of the regular army who perished 
in the defense of the Union during the Civil 
War. Near by is Trophy Point crowded with 
cannon and mortars captured in Mexico and 
some guns taken from the British in the Revo- 
lution. Under the crest of the hill here is a 
modern battery with its guns pointing up the 
river. But I will not attempt to list further 
West Point's many features and attractions. 







<3 



^ 



The Highlands 145 

The rocky character of the Point did not in 
the early days invite settlers and it was only 
frequented by the hunter and the wood-cutter. 
During the war for independence, Constitution 
Island, to the northeast, was fortified and an 
enormous chain, each link weighing over one 
hundred pounds, was stretched across the river. 
The Point itself also had its defences, and a 
redoubt of logs, stones and earth was started 
on the most commanding eminence to the west 
of the plateau. When Sir Henry Clinton came 
up the river to cooperate with Burgoyne the 
defences were very imperfect, and he captured 
them with little trouble. After Burgoyne was 
worsted Sir Henry withdrew down the river, 
and the Americans resumed work on the forti- 
fications. Arnold's treachery threatened to 
undo all their labor, but his plans came to grief, 
and West Point was never in serious danger 
afterward. 

Constitution Island is a mass of rocks inclos- 
ing considerable arable land, and only separated 
from the eastern shore of the river by low 
meadows and marshes. For many years it was 
the home of Miss Susan Warner who wrote 
"The Wide, Wide World" published in 1849. 
The story was long and slow, according to the 



146 The Picturesque Hudson 

critics, but the pubHc bought it with avidity 
nevertheless, and no book of that period, 
except ''Uncle Tom's Cabin," exceeded it in 
popularity. Other novels by the same author 
followed. Her sister Anna likewise won favor 
as a writer, and the two combined in the pro- 
duction of **The Hills of the Shatemuc," the 
final word of the title being one of the Indian 
names for the Hudson. 

Looking northward from the island the great 
rounded crags of Crow Nest and Storm King 
are seen overshadowing the river. The name 
of the former indicates the prevalence of crows 
on that eminence, just as Eagle Valley between 
the two mountains signifies that the vicinity is 
a noted breeding place of eagles — birds once 
very abundant along the Hudson, and still often 
seen. The river front of Crow Nest is called 
"Kidd's Plug Cliff" on the supposition that a 
mass of projecting rock on the face of the preci- 
pice forms a plug to an orifice where the pirate 
hid a store of gold. 

Storm King, the monarch of the Highland 
mountains and guardian of the northern gate- 
way, was originally called "The Klinkenberg" 
which means ''Echo Mount;" and later it 
became known as "Butter Hill" from a fancied 




^ 

^ 



'-^ 



~^ 






CO 



The Highlands 147 

resemblance of its dome-like form to a pat of 
butter. N. P. Willis, who lived in the vicinity, 
and whom some of his neighbors used to speak 
of unappreciatively as '*the dude poet of the 
Hudson," succeeded in bestowing the title of 
** Storm King" on it, as a term befitting its 
dignity, and expressive of the fact that it is an 
unfailing weather gauge to all the country 
north of it. 

The rough headland opposite, whose preci- 
pices are too steep to support much vegetation, 
is Breakneck Mountain, and close at hand to 
the south of Breakneck is Mount Taurus. 
There is a story that a wild bull once terrorized 
the country back of the latter height, until at 
last a strong party undertook to hunt down and 
kill the creature. He fled before his pursuers 
to the top of the next mountain where his 
impetuous flight carried him over the verge 
of the crags. Down he crashed onto the rocks 
below, and there he was found with a broken 
neck. 

Well out in the stream opposite the place 
where this tragedy occurred is Pollopel's Island. 
The old skippers when they came to this island 
on their way down the river are said to have had 
a habit of christening new hands by sousing 



148 The Picturesque Hudson 

them into the current. The ceremony gratified 
the navigators' love for horse play, and at the 
same time wrs supposed to make the victim 
immune from the goblins that were w^ell known 
to haunt the numerous wild mountains that were 
to be encountered in the next few miles. 

With the help of PoUopel's Island, this 
n^thern gateway of the Highlands was ob- 
structed in 1779 by a line of strong iron-pointed 
pikes, each about thirty feet in length, secured 
at the bottom in cribs filled with stone, and 
slanted so that their points were just at the 
surface of the water. The British sailors, 
however, under the guidance of a deserter, found 
little difficulty in taking their ships past this 
obstruction after the Highland forts had been 
captured. Later the cribs were gradually de- 
stroyed by ice, or removed. 

A romantic story which brings the island into 
the scene of its action is the following: Many 
years ago a fair maid of the neighborhood was 
beloved by a farmer's lad. At the same time 
her attractions won the heart of a young minis- 
ter, and one winter evening the preacher took 
her for a sleighride. They were driving on the 
river near PoUopel's Island, when the ice broke 
and they were plunged into the cold water. 



The Highlands 149 

But the farmer's lad happened to be not far 
away and he came in all haste and rescued 
them. The lady at once embraced her rustic 
lover with a warmth that was unmistakable. 
It was clear to the minister that this affection 
made his own suit hopeless, and he promptly 
renounced his love, and there in the moonlight 
united the fair lass and the farmer's lad in 
marriage. 



XI 

FROM CORNWALL TO KINGSTON 

THE northern slope of Storm King declines 
into a table-land that is broken by num- 
erous ravines, and here the town of Cornwall 
pursues the quiet and orderly tenor of its life. 
With its majestic mountain background and its 
fine outlook on the river and a rich soil that 
makes possible flourishing gardens and an 
abundance of blossoms and fruit, it is excep- 
tionally attractive. The town is a favorite 
resort in summer, and its population at that 
season is much more than double what it is 
the rest of the year. Country lanes and bypaths 
invite those who enjoy rambling afoot to explore 
the shaggy steeps of Storm King, and many 
varied and interesting drives are possible. 
Especially noteworthy is the drive to Orange 
Lake through one of the most fertile valleys in 
the state and amid a constant succession of 
stock farms with their luscious pastures and 
productive fields. 







b. 



From Cornwall to Kingston 151 

In the snug but rather dilapidated village 
that huddles around the Cornwall railway 
station and steamboat landing I had a chat 
with an old resident whose opinions on affairs 
both local and general, as he unfolded them 
to me, were decidedly individual and interesting. 
He was inclined to be critical of the wealthy 
city people who have acquired so many fine 
estates along the river, and to be doubtful of 
the value of most of the modern improvements 
which their presence has inspired. Thus he 
mentioned that in Cornwall they "used to get 
as fine water from the springs and wells as 
you'd find anywhere, and yet by and by nothing 
would do but we must have water works. I 
suppose we're obliged to expand somehow — 
that's to be expected — the pants a boy wore 
when he was two years old won't do for him 
when he's man grown. But when they claim 
the water is better than what we used to have, 
they're going a little too far. No person on earth 
can fool me into believing that water which has 
fallen from the sky and been gathered in a 
pond and then stood a long time in pipes can be 
as good as spring water that has filtered through 
the ground. 



152 The Picturesque Hudson 

"Well, everything nowadays is more or less 
a fake, my friend. You see the costly homes 
that line the banks of the Hudson — 'the Mil- 
lionaires* Belt,' they call it^ — and you think 
how grand they are. But a good share of 
those homes are closed all winter and much of 
the rest of the time. The owners are in New 
York during the day and only use their houses 
here in the country for sleeping places. They 
are rarely here steady at any season of the year, 
but are off to Newport or Long Branch or the 
other pleasure resorts. Many families of ordi- 
nary means could support themselves on the 
acres that the millionaires reserve in idleness 
around their mansions. Neither do the fine 
places give any great amount of employment, 
and they're taxed very lightly. You show me 
a man who dodges his taxes, and I can tell 
you pretty near what his religion is, even if he 
does have a great big Bible and draw a long 
face to say his prayers. These rich people 
are a class by themselves. If a fellow in overalls 
has been drinking and staggers past they scoff 
and say, *Oh, see that bum!' but they think 
nothing of being put into a cab in the city and 
driven home at eleven o'clock at night because 
they can't stand up to get there any other way. 



From Cornwall to Kingston 153 

They want prohibition and respect for the law 
on the part of the poor, while they themselves 
do as they please; and they do have their own 
way to quite an extent simply because they've 
got the boodle." 

Not far above Cornwall the Hudson is joined 
by a mild little stream known as Murderer's 
Creek. Near the mouth of this stream in early 
times there dwelt a family which numbered 
among its friends an Indian called Naoman. 
This Indian was frequently welcomed to the 
family's cabin and showed great friendliness 
toward them, but in some way the head of the 
household incurred the hatred of Naoman's 
tribe who resolved to kill the whole family. 
The friendly Indian contrived to impart this 
news and the whites stole away at night and 
rowed down stream in a boat intending to 
escape through the Highlands. But when oppo- 
site PoUopel's Island a large canoe full of 
savages put out and gave chase. The white 
man succeeded in killing several of the pursuers 
with his rifle, but was overtaken and made 
captive. With his wife and children he was 
carried in triumph to the Indian village. The 
chief demanded from them the name of the 
person who had warned them, but they would 



154 The Picturesque Hudson 

not answer, even when they were told that their 
refusal would be punished with instant death. 
Then Naoman stepped forward and acknowl- 
edged that he was the guilty one. At once he 
was struck down and a rush was made on the 
defenceless white family. They were all killed 
and their bodies were thrown into the creek, 
the name of which recalls their melancholy fate. 

The next places of importance which are 
encountered in journeying up the river are 
the towns of Fishkill and Newburgh, just across 
the river from each other. Behind the former, 
extending northeastward, is the finely sculp- 
tured range of elevations known as the Beacon 
Hills. During the Revolution some of these 
peaks were prominent stations for signal fires 
which were to give warning of any approach 
of the enemy. The beacon pyres were in the 
form of a pyramid, rising to a height of thirty 
feet, and made of logs filled in with brush and 
inflammable materials. A beacon on Storm 
King gave the first signal and the rest were 
subordinate. 

Newburgh covers the slope of a wide hillside 
on which the buildings rise in a series of terraces 
from the water's edge. The place occupies 
almost the only spot on the western side of the 




The Poughkeepsie Bridge 



From Cornwall to Kingston 155 

stream between Jersey City and Kingston 
where a great town could be situated, accessible 
by good wagon roads from the interior. It has 
therefore excelled from the first as a trading 
town. After the capture of the forts near New 
York early in the war, British vessels were free 
to patrol the river south of the Highlands, and 
at Newburgh was the most available ferry 
thereafter for the Patriot troops that hurried 
now east, now v/est, compensating for the 
pitiful inadequacy of every division of Wash- 
ington's army by their quick shifting to points 
of danger. 

On an eminence in plain view from the river 
is the Jonathan Hasbrouck house which, after 
the battle of Yorktown was fought, was Wash- 
ington's headquarters from April, 1782, until 
August of the next year. The house is in an 
excellent state of preservation and is used as a 
repository for military relics. Its stone walls 
are two feet thick, and it has hewn rafters of 
savory cedar. There is an old story that while 
Washington lived in it a plot was concocted to 
capture him and turn him over to Sir Henry 
Clinton. A man named Ettrick and his daughter 
dwelt in a secluded valley to the south of the 
Hasbrouck house. Their home was at the 



156 The Picturesque Hudson 

head of a long, narrow bay, and though only a 
short distance away in a direct line could only 
be reached by the road after making a detour 
of nearly two miles. The chief was in the habit 
of going occasionally down to the head of this 
bay, and Ettrick and several confederates 
planned to seize him on one of these visits and 
row off with him down the river. Luckily 
Ettrick's daughter betrayed the plot and it 
came to naught. 

While at Newburgh a paper drawn up and 
signed by officers who had stood by him through 
the darkest of the conflict, informed him that 
they wished this country to be a monarchy and 
Washington himself its king. The appeal seems 
to have grieved him deeply. He had not been 
fighting for personal aggrandizement, and such 
an outcome of the war would be melancholy 
indeed. In his response he said, *'You could 
not have found a person to whom your schemes 
are more disagreeable," and begged them to 
banish such thoughts from their minds. 

At length the day came for ordering the dis- 
banding of the army. It was an occasion of 
jubilee that was marked by a noble address 
from the commander-in-chief, and ended in an 
illumination on a gigantic scale. Watchfires 



From Cornwall to Kingston 157 

on all the prominent hills blazed from huge 
stacks of timber to announce that peace was 
at last a reality. 

A half dozen miles above Newburgh is a 
projection from the western shore that from 
early Colonial times has borne the significant 
name of den Duyvels' Dans Kamer — the Devils' 
Dance Chamber. It is a flat-topped rock, half 
an acre in extent. The devils referred to are 
Indians who were accustomed to meet on the 
rock for councils and merry-makings. When 
the superstitious Dutchmen saw them engaged 
in their pow-wows and dancing about the camp- 
fires under the lead of their medicine men they 
no doubt seemed fiends incarnate. So presently 
it came to be a matter of common belief that 
the devil appeared here to his votaries to set 
them on when any particularly atrocious deed 
was to be accomplished. 

The tendency seems to have been irresistible 
to associate Captain Kidd with every unusually 
striking rock or cove along the borders of the 
river; and it is understood that one of the 
hoards of pirate treasure was secreted in the 
waters neighboring the Danskammer. Attempts 
to locate this wealth have, however, thus far 
failed. 



158 The Picturesque Hudson 

We now begin to come into that part of the 
river where ice-houses abound. There is a 
constant succession of these immense store- 
houses hugging the shores all the way to the 
head of navigation, forming a feature of the 
scenery more conspicuous than ornamental. 
Into them is gathered the winter harvest of the 
river's surface, which is later sent in barges to 
New York and other cities as it is needed. 
Housing the ice gives work to thousands of 
laboring men along the course of the river, and 
they look forward with eagerness to this chance 
of employment during the rigors of midwinter. 
*Tce or no ice," says John Burroughs, "some- 
times means bread or no bread to scores of fami- 
lies, and it means added or diminished comfort 
to many more. It is a crop that takes two or 
three v/eeks of rugged weather to grow. Men 
go out from time to time and examine it, as the 
farmer goes out and examines his grain or 
grass, to see when it will do to cut. If there 
comes a deep fall of snow, the ice is * pricked' 
so as to let the water up through, and form snow 
ice. A band of fifteen or twenty men, about a 
yard apart, each armed with a chisel bar, and 
marching in line, puncture the ice at each step 
with a single sharp thrust. But ice, to be first 




John Burroughs at " Riverby 



From Cornwall to Kingston 159 

quality, must grow from beneath, not from 
above. A good yield every two or three years 
is about all that can be counted on. 

**The cutting and gathering of the ice en- 
livens these white, desolate fields amazingly. 
There is the broad straight canal running nearly 
across the river. On either side lie the ice 
meadows, each marked out by cedar or hem- 
lock boughs. The further one is cut first, and 
when cleared shows a large black parallelo- 
gram in the midst of the plain of snow. Then 
the next one is cut, leaving a strip of ice between 
the two for the horses to move and turn on. 
Sometimes nearly two hundred men and boys 
are at work at once, marking, ploughing, 
scraping, sawing, hauling, chiseling; some 
floating down the pond on great square islands 
towed by a horse or their fellow workmen, 
others on the bridges, separating the blocks 
with thin chisel bars, others feeding the elevators, 
while knots and straggling lines of idlers here 
and there look on in cold discontent, unable 
to get a job. 

"The best crop of ice is an early crop. Late 
in the season the ice is apt to get sunstruck, when 
it becomes * shaky,' like a piece of poor timber. 



i6o The Picturesque Hudson 

"One of the prettiest sights about the ice 
harvesting is the elevator in operation. There is 
an unending procession of the great crystal 
blocks ascending this incline. They go up in 
couples, glowing and changing in the sun, and 
recalling the precious stones that adorn the 
w^alls of the celestial city. When they reach the 
platform where they leave the elevator they 
seem to slip ojBF like things of life. They are 
still in pairs and separate only as they enter on 
their *runs.' Here they are subjected to a rapid 
inspection, and every square with a trace of 
sediment or earth-stain is rejected and sent 
hurling down into the abyss. Those that pass 
the examination glide into the building along 
the gentle Incline and are switched off here and 
there on branch runs, and distributed to all 
parts of the immense interior." 

On the portion of the river above the High- 
lands where it congeals so firmly. Ice Is not only 
Important as a commodity, but It Is also a source 
of pleasure. The breadth of the stream and 
its long straight reaches, and the evenness with 
which It freezes, owing to its lack of rapids and 
vagrant currents, make it unusually favorable 
for ice-yachting. With what astonishing speed 
those sails on skates do move! Sometimes they 



From Cornwall to Kingston i6i 

go more than a mile a minute and outstrip the 
fastest express trains. A ride on one of them 
is like the Chinaman's first toboggan slide — 
**Phwt!!! Walkee back two mile." The run- 
ners are three in number and support a broad, 
low platform, on which the pleasure-seekers, 
wrapped in furs or blankets, lie at full length. 
There is, of course, quite a degree of danger, 
but this only seems to add spice to the enjoy- 
ment. 

As we continue northward we see the great 
cantilever bridge spanning the river at Pough- 
keepsie. It is about two and a half miles long^ 
extending from highland to highland, and at 
the center is one hundred and sixty-five feet 
clear above the river. The bridge was finished 
in 1889 and cost over three million dollars. 
One or two athletes, seeking money and notoriety 
have allowed themselves to drop from it into 
the river and have survived the foolhardy 
exploit. 

The name of the adjacent city is said to be 
derived from a Mohican word apo-keep-sttick, 
— **a safe and pleasant harbor." This harbor 
is a small bay where a stream that flows through 
the town joins the Hudson. It received its 
title in the following manner: 



i62 The Picturesque Hudson 

A youthful Pequod warrior who had been 
captured by some Delawares and condemned 
to torture, was offered his hberty if he would 
renounce his own tribe and become a member 
of theirs. He refused to accept such terms and 
was bound to a tree for sacrifice when a shriek 
from a thicket startled his captors. A young 
girl leaped into their midst and implored for 
the life of the young brave who was her lover. 
Tlie Delawares held a consultation but were 
interrupted by the warwhoops of a party of 
Hurons. They snatched up their arms to defend 
them.selves from the fierce enemy, and the 
maiden took advantage of the confusion to 
sever the thongs that bound the captive. But 
in the conflict that ensued the two were sepa- 
rated, and a Huron chief carried her off as a 
trophy. The Pequod attempted her rescue by 
entering the camp of the Hurons disguised as a 
wizard. She was sick and her captor employed 
the wizard to exert his art to cure her. That 
night the two eluded the vigilance of the Hurons, 
and with swift feet fled toward the Hudson. 
They Vv^ere pursued, but reached the river first 
and darted out on the stream in a light canoe. 
The strong arms of the young warrior paddled 
his loved one safely to a deep rocky nook at 




The Vassal Gate 



From Cornwall to Kingston 163 

the mouth of a creek, and there he concealed her. 
Some members of his own tribe were within 
hail, and they promptly came in response to 
his shouts and helped him drive off the Hurons 
who had followed him. The sheltered nook 
where the maiden was hid had been indeed a 
safe harbor, and fully merited its title of Apo- 
keep-sinck. 

On the southern suburbs of Poughkeepsie, 
between the river and the highway, in a fine 
open spot, stands the house that was once the 
home of Professor S. F. B. Morse, who made 
telegraphy practicable. A little above, we pass 
the great Call Rock where tradition says the 
early burghers of the town used to sit and hail 
the sloops for news as they drifted by. Here 
at the waterside are the vacant and battered 
brick buildings of Matthew Vassar's brewery 
whence came the money that started Vassar 
College. Originally, Mr. Vassar, when he 
thought of doing something of public value 
with his wealth, was inclined to erect a monu- 
ment to the discoverer of the river. But the 
announcement of this plan seemed to arouse 
little interest, and he at length decided to found 
a college instead. So the first institution in 
the world devoted exclusively to the higher 



164 The Picturesque Hudson 

education of women came into being in 1861. 
It is on the upland two miles east of the city in 
the midst of an extensive and beautiful park. 
Its more recent buildings have a good deal of 
architectural charm, and there is an air of repose 
and refinement about the place that is very 
attractive. Close at hand is a little lake winding 
back between wooded banks in a protected 
hollow, and one of the prettiest sights at the 
college is to see the canoes on its quiet waters, 
moving swift or slow according to the mood of 
their occupants. Some of the girls prefer horse- 
back riding; and as one of the helpers about the 
place remarked to me, ''They are up at half- 
past six every morning to canter away somewhere 
over the roads. But there's others who don't 
get up till they have to." 

Not far above Poughkeepsie the eastern 
ridges of the Catskills begin to come into view 
from the river, and are one of the chief scenic 
attractions of this part of the Hudson valley 
for thirty or forty miles. In hazy weather they 
have very much the appearance of clouds along 
the horizon, and as a matter of fact they were 
called by the aborigines the Onteoras or Moun- 
tains of the Sky. Among these mountains, 
according to Indian belief, was kept a treasury 




i-_- ~j4oBt Jbf*JL,a 



The lake at Vaac 



From Cornwall to Kingston 165 

of storm and sunshine presided over by an old 
squaw spirit who dwelt on the highest peak. 
The great Manitou employed her to manu- 
facture clouds. Sometimes she wove them out 
of cobwebs, gossamers and morning dew, and 
let them float off in the air to give light summer 
showers. Sometimes she would brew up black 
thunderstornis and send down drenching rains. 
She kept day and night shut up in her wigwam, 
letting out one at a time. Among her other 
duties was that of making a new moon every 
month. The old moons she cut up into stars. 

One of the minor villages bordering the river 
within a short distance of Poughkeepsie is 
West Park, where John Burroughs, nature 
lover, philosopher, and grower of small fruits has 
chosen to make his home. No one else has ever 
written of the wild life of the fields and forests, 
particularly of the birds, with such enthusiasm 
and keenness of observation and with such 
lively humor. On the long slope rising from 
the river are his acres of grapes and currants, 
and well up the incline stands his home of gray 
native stone nearly hidden by shade and fruit 
trees. He has the Hudson in sight from the 
house, and also from his little bark-covered 
study lower on the hill where much of his writing 



i66 The Picturesque Hudson 

has been done. Latterly, however, his favorite 
writing place is at "Slabsides" a rude but not 
uncomfortable domicile he has built for himself 
back a mile or two in the rocky woodland. 

The first large tov/n north of Poughkeepsie 
is Kingston, one of the earliest settled places on 
the river. Its founders built their cabins near 
the mouth of a creek where they fortified them- 
selves,"^and this portion of the present city still 
has the name of Rondout, meaning fort or 
earthwork. As time went on scattered farmers 
established themselves, and then trouble de- 
veloped with the Indians. A farmer was killed 
and two houses burned in May, 1658, whereupon 
the governor of the province, Peter Stuyvesant, 
came up the river from Manhattan with fifty 
soldiers and called the sachems to account. 
They conferred under an ancient tree of vast 
expanse, and the dusky-skinned chieftains were 
scolded roundly by the doughty Peter, who de- 
manded that they should deliver up the mur- 
derer. They replied that the culprit was not 
one of their tribe, and moreover he had fled 
into the great woods, no one could say where 
or how far. There followed much argument 
and excuses and threats, and at last the Indians 
came forward to propitiate the governor with 




^ 



'-< 



^ 



From Cornwall to Kingston 167 

belts of wampum and begged for peace. He 
did not have much confidence in them, how- 
ever, and in fear there might be a renewal of 
hostilities he ordered the settlers to build, on 
an out-thrust of the upland a little back from 
the river, a stout stockade large enough to con- 
tain all their buildings, and into v/hich they were 
to retire each night. 

Stuyvesant's precautions were amply justi- 
fied, for that autumn a party of Indians em- 
ployed by one of the settlers got hold of a jug 
of firewater and made the night so hideous with 
their tipsy yells that a panic was started among 
the settlers. In spite of strict orders from the 
commander of the stockade, certain ones fired 
at the Indians, wounding several, and as a result 
a desultory and barbaric war began. The red- 
skins soon gathered a force of five hundred 
braves, and surrounded the fort. No one durst 
leave it for three weeks. Crops were burned, 
cattle slaughtered, houses destroyed, and a 
number of captives were put to death by torture. 
A truce was at last secured, and a feeling ot 
security gradually developed which led the 
Kingston people to leave the gates of their fort 
open day and night. But in June, 1663, the 
Indians, who had come to the fort in great 



i68 The Picturesque Hudson 

numbers under pretence of trading, made a 
sudden attack while most of the white men were 
outside of the walls. The Dutch rallied, and 
after a desperate fight in which eighteen of them 
were killed, drove out the invaders. Forty- 
two prisoners were carried away by the savages, 
and nearly all the newly-established farms 
were destroyed. The war did not end until the 
local Indians had been almost exterminated. 
The survivors agreed to abandon the river 
settlements to the Dutch, retaining the privilege 
of trading at Rondout, ** provided but three 
canoes came at a time, preceded by a flag of 
truce. 

During the Revolution Kingston again suf- 
fered. ¥/hen Sir Henry Clinton moved north 
to cooperate with Burgoyne this was almost the 
farthest point he succeeded in reaching. He 
easily captured and destroyed the shipping in 
the harbor, and drove the garrison from the 
neighboring earthworks. Then a British de- 
tachment marched up the slope from Rondout 
to Kingston, encountering no more resistance 
than a stray shot now and then from some 
exasperated American. They found the village 
deserted by almost everyone except a few slaves. 
The people of the town — "a pestiferous nest of 



From Cornwall to Kingston 169 

rebels," the British esteemed them — had fled, 
taking with them only such valuables as they 
could hastily stow in wagons, and the soldiers 
immediately scattered about the place looting 
and setting fire to the houses and barns. This 
done they hastily withdrew. One of the houses 
burned was a stone dwelling in which were 
held the first sessions of the state senate, but 
the walls remained intact, and the interior was 
presently restored. It stands today one of the 
most interesting relics of the past in the Hudson 
Valley. 



XII 

ON THE BORDERS OF THE CATSKILLS 

"n^ROM Kingston a railroad runs back into 
-*- the southern Catskills, a region of noble 
wooded heights with trout streams in every 
glen; and when you get beyond its wilder 
portion the mountains descend into vast billowy 
hills with much open pasture land, and with 
farm fields chnging to the lofty slopes. The 
name Catskill is of Dutch origin and means 
Wildcat Creek. The creek which won this 
particular title by the old-time prevalence of 
catamounts in its valley joins the Hudson about 
a score of miles above Kingston, and near its 
mouth is a town bearing the same name. Here 
is another entrance to the famous group of 
mountains and hills, and a railroad v^inds back 
into the tangled valleys. But a more agreeable 
method of journeying thither is by driving. 
It was thus I chose to go one day about the 
first of June, and as the horse jogged along I 
had plenty of opportunity to look about and 




o 



^ 



On the Borders of the Catskills 171 

see the country. The road rambled in and out 
of the hollows and over the hills, and was full 
of pleasant and unexpected changes. It fol- 
lowed the line of least resistance. Straight 
lines and angles are only suited to city thor- 
oughfares, and a region where a direct highway 
is almost impossible gives genuine satisfaction. 
Each time I mounted a ridge I had a glorious 
view of the blue mountains ever looming higher 
into the sky as I drew nearer; and there was 
many a delectable spot in the vales — meadows 
golden with dandelions that imparted a glow 
of color delightful to behold, an abundance of 
trees tenderly green with new leafage, and swift 
streams sparkling in the sunshine. The birds 
were singing, and occasionally I heard the 
tapping of a woodpecker, or saw a hawk 
soaring far aloft. 

Now and then I passed a farmhouse. The 
dwellings remote from the villages were apt to 
look neglected and often were vacant. Evi- 
dently farming was not so attractive a calling 
as in years past. But the rustic homes that had 
been transformed into summer hotels and 
boarding places looked prosperous enough to 
make up. The opening of the vacation season 
was near at hand and the v/omen were busy 



172 The Picturesque Hudson 

about the woodwork and windows with their 
scrubbing cloths and brushes, and the men were 
making needed repairs or improvements and 
touching up the dwelHngs and fences with gay 
paint. The painters were bound to have some- 
thing striking to satisfy their own sense of the 
beautiful and please the city people. I suppose 
a quiet simplicity as compared with giddy 
streaks and patches seems hopelessly tame to 
rustic dwellers and perhaps is uninteresting to 
many townspeople as well — more's the pity. 

During my drive I went up the famous 
Kaaterskill Clove — a charming wilderness valley 
that opens back between two mountains. A 
steep, narrow road, abounding with thank- 
you-m'ams, crept up one side of the bordering 
ridges, and a noisy stream worried down the 
rocky depths of the hollow with many a rapid 
and foaming leap. But what I especially wanted 
to see was the portion of the mountains most 
closely associated with Rip Van Winkle. I 
doubt if Irving had any definite spot in mind 
when he wrote the story, yet the public long ago 
decided that Van Winkle's house and the place 
where he slept were high on the Hudson slope 
of South Mountain. An old road zigzags up 
to a summit house, but is reputed to be so pre- 




The Rip Van Winkle hut and the Half-iuay Hou 



se 



On the Borders of the Catskills 173 

cipitous and rough that I left my horse in the 
valley and climbed on foot. By and by I came 
to a little hut by the roadside snugged into a 
wild hollow with wooded cliffs rising around 
on three sides, and a deep gorge dropping away 
on the fourth side. This hut is known as the 
Rip Van Winkle house. It is said to have been 
there for at least fifty years, and no one knows 
its origin. Close to it is a ruinous hotel, and both 
are much marked and scribbled with names of 
idling sightseers. A rude path leads up the 
declivity to the left, and a short scramble brings 
one to a great boulder inscribed '* Rip's Rock" — 
the supposed place where he had his long sleep. 
When I returned to Catskill I lodged with a 
family that had originally lived in the mountains 
and they gave me a good deal of entertaining 
information not only about the Catskills but 
about other matters of local interest. **Yes," 
said the man, ''that little house was where Rip 
lived, and the rock was where he slept. Him and 
his dog Snider went up to that rock, and he 
tied the dog to a sapling and lay down for a 
nap. When he woke up he looked for his dog 
Snider, and he couldn't see anything of him, 
and he called to him but got no answer. After 
a while he happened to cast his eyes up in a 



174 The Picturesque Hudson 

tree and saw his dog's bones hanging there. 
The sapHng had grown to be a big tree in 
twenty years and as it increased in height had 
carried the dog up into the air. 

"There's a wonderful lot of people come to 
the mountains now compared with what came 
when I was a boy. ¥/hy, gracious goodness! 
in the district where I was raised there was only 
scattered farms, and a schoolhouse no bigger 
than my kitchen, but now the place is quite a 
town with stores, hotels, churches and every- 
thing else. The people in that region have about 
given up farming. We used to have some 
awful crops where at present they only grow a 
little garden stuff. My father cut good timothy 
hay on land that today is grown up to woods as 
big as my arm; but he and the other farmers 
could hardly make a fair living. They just 
managed to keep the interest on their mortgages 
paid up, and that was about all. Every Saturday 
we'd drive to Catskill with butter and eggs, 
poultry, pork and other produce. We had some 
regular customers, but mostly we'd sell to the 
stores and trade out what was due us. A good 
deal of work was done with oxen. My father 
had a yoke. Once they ran away when they 
was hitched to a dumpcart. Father and I were 




The oldest house in Hudson 



On the Borders of the Catskills 175 

in the cart, and to stop 'em he guided 'em into 
a swamp hole. That did the trick, but they 
got mired so deep v/e had to have help to haul 
'em out. 

"My mother died, and then my father swapped 
his farm for a place down here and went into 
the milk business. He had to have some one 
to keep house, so he married again, and as his 
second wife had a little cash they made a good 
start and did very well, though they bought 
everything that went into the cows' mouths. 

''With prices what they are now any man 
back in the hills who wants to take care of his 
farm can make money hand over fist. But 
most of 'em think farming is too hard v/ork 
and prefer to get their profit from city boarders. 
Gee! Some of 'em charge to beat the band. 
They're robbers! But then lots of these city 
people have money to burn. I took a city man 
with his wife and tAvo children in my team to 
one of the hotels last summer; and, by golly, 
boy, he'd brought along two trunks full of 
playthings for those kids, and he hired a big 
room at fifteen dollars a week to turn the kids 
and their playthings loose in. 

"I've been surprised to notice how little some 
city people knowed about the country. They're 



1/6 The Picturesque Hudson 

supposed to be up to snuff on everything in 
New York, but land ahve! they do ask you the 
dumbdest questions that ever was imagined. 
One day a fellow in a party I was taking for a 
drive pointed and said, 'There's a flock of 
cows over there. Now will you tell me which 
of 'em give the buttermilk ?' 

*'He was kind of a fresh duck but I led him 
on till I made sure he was sincere and innocent, 
and then I said, *You see that cow with the 
white face — well, that's the one that gives the 
buttermilk.' 

'"But how do you get it out of her ^ he says. 
'Well,' says I, 'we set a pail under her 
bag and take hold of her tail and pump.' 

"He believed me all right." 

We had shad for breakfast, which the lady 
of the house said they did not indulge in nowa- 
days very often. "They're getting to be a 
luxury," she said, "and so are most other river 
fish. I can remember when the farmers used 
to come and get herring by the cartload to use 
for fertilizer. Carp are about the only fish that 
are reasonable in price, and I don't care for 
them. They taste too muddy. The first one 
we had was bought for us by a neighbor. He 
couldn't get shad and said it was claimed this 



On the Borders of the Catskills 177 

was just as nice. If he'd been here v/hen I'd 
got it cooked I could have throwed it at him, I 
was so mad. Over the river they have a carp 
net three thousand feet long and they pull in 
tons of those carp. The more they catch the 
more there seems to be. A sheeny from New 
York comes around and buys the fish at from 
six to nine cents a pound. The fishing is very 
profitable for the man that owns the net, and 
yet to look at his buildings you wouldn't think 
he was worth a dollar. Why, his barn is so full 
of holes you can throw a cat through anywhere." 
Catskill's early history was comparatively 
tranquil. No serious conflicts occurred with 
the Indians, but there is a tradition that near by 
on Wanton Island a fierce battle was fought 
between the Mohawks and the Mohicans. The 
former at last retired to another island where 
they built fires and pretended to encamp. But 
after arranging sticks and stones near the fires 
and spreading blankets over them to give a 
semblance of seated men they retired to the 
forest and waited in ambush till the Mohicans 
appeared to complete their victory. At length, 
in the dead of night, the Mohicans came and, 
tomahawks in hand, made a sudden rush and 
assailed the blankets with great fury. This at 



178 The Picturesque Hudson 

once exposed them to the glow of the fires, 
and in the confusion of their mistaken attack 
they fell a ready prey to the arrows of the crafty 
Mohawks. 

A little to the north of Catskill, across the 
river, is the city of Hudson. The place was 
settled in 1784 by thirty New Englanders, 
mostly Qiiakers. They were men mighty in 
the handling of the harpoon who had sailed on 
many seas, and though Hudson is over a hundred 
miles inland they proposed to establish here a 
town devoted to whaling and kindred indus- 
tries. Strangely enough, they made a success 
on just these lines, and not only whalers but other 
vessels brought their spoils to the town from 
the ends of the earth. The growth of the place 
was phenomenal and the proprietors waxed 
wealthy. But when steam navigation became 
a certainty, Hudson as a seaport was doomed; 
yet not till 1845 was the last ship sold that had 
engaged in the whaling business. 

The city is built on a blujBF which rises abruptly 
from the river, and the brow of the bluff affords 
a very attractive view of the river. Clinging 
to the verge of this height is a weatherworn, big- 
chimneyed house, evidently one of the oldest in 
the place. I got acquainted with its occupant — a 



On the Borders of the Catskills 179 

negro, and ancient like his dweUing. He had 
always made his home in the vicinity, and so had 
his father before him. The latter had been 
somewhat noted as a violinist. "He made that 
his business," said my acquaintance, "and trav- 
elled around with a horse and wagon to play at 
balls and parties. There was quite a circuit he 
went over. He seemed to have a natural 
mother-wit gift for giving people a good time. 
It was born into him and he could make jokes 
so as to kill everyone laughing. His company 
was superior and it was appreciated. Once he 
went to Pennsylvania and they offered him a 
present of a house and lot worth six hundred 
dollars if he'd come there to live; but money 
was no object to him and he wouldn't go. Our 
family was all musical, and I've played the 
violin a good deal in my day; but its worldly 
you know, and I've given it up. I try to serve 
the Lord now." 

In early life my informant was for some time 
a porter on a steamboat, and as a result of his 
experience had concluded there was "just as 
much difference between New Englanders and 
the people of the Middle States as between day 
and night." "On the boats where I worked," 
said he, "if a passenger didn't tip you for 



i8o The Picturesque Hudson 

carrying his bag you*d refuse to give it to him 
and tell him you'd lock it up. That would 
fetch the money from most of them, but not 
from a New Englander. He'd get mad and 
say, 'Where's the cap'n ?' No, you couldn't 
work an Eastern man, but you could git the 
New York and New Jersey men on skin games 
every time." 

While we talked a boy passed carrying some 
eels. "Those would suit me pretty well," re- 
marked my friend. "I'll eat eel before I will 
any other fish. Down on the Mississippi they 
have an eel that's very much like our eels only 
somewhat darker, and it has little legs, or 
perhaps you might say each leg was a little 
hand with a claw into it. In the spring of the 
year those eels are blind and bite everything that 
touches 'em. I saw one in the water once close 
to a scow I was on, and I took an oar and 
squeezed him against the side of the boat. He 
squealed just like a rat and, by George! you 
ought to see him bite at the oar. If you get 
bitten by one, whatever you are going to do you 
want to do in five minutes. The only thing 
that'll save you is to ketch a live chicken and 
cut it open and clap it onto the bitten place. 

"Down in South America they have a gal- 



On the Borders of the Catskills i8i 

vanic eel, and if he hits you you're paralized and 
can't move hand or foot. That's the reason 
the people don't go in swimming there. I had a 
cat once on shipboard that was a thieving sort 
of a creature, and I said, 'Mr. Cat, when we 
git near land where you can swim ashore, over 
you go.' Well, we got to Para, right under the 
equator in the middle of the globe, and I threw 
the cat overboard from near the bow. The 
tide was setting toward shore and I walked aft 
to see what became of the animal, but, my 
king! he wasn't to be seen. One of those gal- 
vanic eels must have struck him." 

I asked the old negro about the various 
legends of the Hudson, hoping to get new 
versions, but he said, "These people along the 
river are superstitious and believe in lots of 
things, but I don't take any stock in such 
stories myself." 

Down at the steamboat landing, while waiting 
to continue my journey, I had a chat with 
another local resident. Everything with him 
seemed to date from 1866, the year in which he 
married. "I paid five dollars a month rent then 
for two rooms," he said, "but a family ain't 
content now to live in that way, and the rent 
takes all a man earns. I seen the time here in 



1 82 The Picturesque Hudson 

'66 when coal was fifteen dollars a ton; and the 
first barrel of flour we bought cost eighteen 
dollars. But it was a poor week I couldn't 
make thirty-five or forty dollars around the 
wharves, and this was a hundred per cent 
better town then than now." 

I remarked on the frequency of the big ice- 
houses we could see across the river. *'Yes," 
he responded, ''they stand so thick all the way 
from Kingston to Albany that you can throw a 
stone from one to another the whole distance. 
Men drive here from nine miles back in the 
country in the winter to work icing, and they 
go home every night. They bring dinner pails 
bigger'n that post in front of us, and they get 
two dollars a day and freeze to death. They 
have to be up at three in the morning in order 
to arrive here ready to begin at seven, and they 
freeze coming and they freeze again going home. 
It's no job I'd care for." 



XIII 

AT THE HEAD OF NAVIGATION 

ON THE west bank of the Hudson, one 
hundred and forty-five miles from New 
York, stands Albany. The population of both 
shores is dense for a dozen miles above, and 
Troy, Cohoes, and other cities form a close 
succession with little that is genuinely rural 
between. The buildings most m evidence 
along Albany's waterside are dingy old ware- 
houses. These may be seriously lacking con- 
sidered from a business standpomt, but they 
have the human look and interest that only age 
can confer. They have passed through trials 
and tribulations, and experience is written in 
their battered, time-worn walls and uncouth, 
out-of-date architecture. As you go back from 
the river the land soon begins to rise in a long 
vigorous slope, and at the top of the hill, where 
was the fort of the Colonial town from the 
earliest times, is now the great marble state 
capitol. The building presides not only over 



184 The Picturesque Hudson 

the city, but the entire neighboring valley. Its 
size, its situation, and the dignity of its archi- 
tecture unite to make it very impressive. But 
to fully realize its immensity one has to see it 
from the other side of the river. When its 
foundations v^ere begun in 1869 it was expected 
to cost four million dollars. The building was 
ready for the legislature to meet in it ten years 
later, but many more years were required to 
complete it, and the total cost was twenty-one 
millions. 

The first settlers of Albany chose this particu- 
lar point on the river for their trading post 
because here started the great trail of the 
aborigines which crossed to the Mohawk River 
at Schenectady, and then followed the valley 
of that stream westward to the lake country. 
Other important trails or canoe routes to the 
southwestward and the north and east also 
began here. It was a central point on the 
Indian highways, just as it is now on the civi- 
lized transportation routes. 

In 1614 a stockaded trading house was 
erected on the island just below the present city. 
Nine years later a few families from across the 
sea established themselves at the foot of the 
clay hill on which the capitol now lifts it 



At the Head of Navigation 185 

masses of sculptured granite, and built rude 
huts and a little log fort. At the end of the 
century the place consisted of about one hundred 
houses surrounded by a stockade pierced to 
the north and south by a narrow gateway. It 
was much resorted to by Indians and by the 
scarcely less savage P'rench hunters, who ended 
each transaction by a grand spree. Its favor- 
able position and the amicable relations main- 
tained by the manorial lords with the Iroquois 
made it, until after the Revolution, one of the 
most important places in North America. One 
of its claims to distinction is the fact that it 
existed for over a century without a single 
lawyer. 

Albany was included in the Van Rensselaer 
manor, and the patroon was a veritable feudal 
chieftain regarded with reverence by all the 
country. At one period there were on the do- 
main several thousand tenants, and their 
gatherings were similar to those of the old 
Scottish clans. When a lord of the manor died, 
his tenants swarmed to the manor-house to do 
honor at the funeral. If it was announced that 
the patroon was coming to New York by land, 
crowds would turn out on the day he was ex- 
pected, to see him drive through Broadway 



1 86 The Picturesque Hudson 

with his coach and four as though he were a 
prince royal. The great Van Rensselaer manor- 
house, built in 1765, was long considered the 
most palatial dwelling In the New World, and 
was noted for the princely character of Its 
entertainment. 

At the time of the Revolution Albany was 
still a stockaded town. During the war It was 
constantly a depot of supplies, and an outpost 
often threatened, but never reached by British 
expeditions from the lower river and from 
Canada and the Indian country. It was made 
the capital of the state in 1797, but Its growth 
In population was not rapid until after the ad- 
vent of the steamboat and the completion of the 
Erie Canal. 

A most entertaining description of colonial 
Albany Is found in Mrs. Grant's ''Memoirs of 
an American Lady," from whose lively pages 
I quote freely In what follows. She writes of 
a time about a score of years preceding the 
Revolution. 

"The city stretched along the banks of the 
Hudson. One very wide and long street lay 
parallel to the river, the intermediate space 
between it and the shore being occupied by 
gardens. A small but steep hill rose above 










^ 
s 



^ 



=1, 



At the Head of Navigation 187 

the center of the town, on which stood a fort, 
intended (but very ill adapted) for the defence 
of the place and the neighboring country. From 
this hill another street was built, sloping pretty 
rapidly down till it joined the one that ran along 
the river. This street was still wider than the 
other, the middle being occupied by public 
edifices. 

*'The town, in proportion to its population, 
occupied a great space of ground. This city, 
in short, was a kind of semi-rural establishment. 
Every house had its garden, well and a little 
green behind. Before every door a tree was 
planted, rendered interesting by being coeval 
with some beloved member of the family. 
Many of the trees were of a prodigious size and 
extraordinary beauty, but without regularity, 
everyone planting the kind that best pleased 
him, or which he thought would afford the 
most agreeable shade to the open portico at 
his door, which was surrounded by seats and 
ascended by a few steps. It was in these that 
each domestic group was seated in summer 
evenings to enjoy the balmy twilight or the se- 
renely clear moonlight. Each family had a 
cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of 
the town. In the evening the herd returned all 



1 88 The Picturesque Hudson 

together, of their own accord, with their tinkling 
bells hung at their necks, along the wide and 
grassy street, to their wonted sheltering trees, 
to be milked at their master's doors. 

** Nothing could be more pleasing than to 
see thus, at one view, all the inhabitants of a 
town, which contained not one very rich or 
very poor, very knowing or very ignorant, very 
rude or very polished individual — to see all 
these children of Nature enjoying in easy 
indolence or social intercourse, 

* The cool, the fragrant, and the dusky hour ' 

These primitive beings were dispersed in 
porches, grouped according to similarity of 
years and inclinations. At one door were young 
matrons; at another, the elders of the people; 
at a third, the youths and maidens, gaily 
chatting or singing together; while the children 
played round the trees or waited by the cows 
for the chief ingredient of their frugal supper, 
which they generally ate sitting on the steps 
in the open air. 

**At one end of the town, as I observed before, 
was a common pasture. At the other end was 
a fertile plain along the river, three miles in 
length, and near a mile broad. This was 
divided into lots. There every inhabitant 



At the Head of Navigation 189 

raised Indian corn sufficient for the food of two 
or three slaves (the greatest number that each 
family ever possessed) and for his horses, pigs 
and poultry. Above the town, a long stretch 
to the westward was occupied by sandy hills, 
on which grew bilberries of uncommon size and 
flavor, in prodigious quantities. Beyond, rise 
heights of a poor, hungry soil, thinly covered 
with stunted pines or dwarf oak. Yet in this 
comparatively barren tract there were several 
wild and picturesque spots, where small brooks 
running in deep and rich bottoms, nourished 
on their banks every vegetable beauty. There 
some of the most industrious settlers had 
cleared the luxuriant wood from these charm- 
ing glens, and built neat cottages for their slaves 
surrounded with little gardens and orchards. 
The cottages were occupied in summer by some 
of the negroes, who cultivated the grounds 
about them, and served as a place of joyful 
liberty to the children of the family on holidays. 
"The children of the town were all divided 
into companies, from five or six years of age, 
till they became marriageable. Every company 
contained as many boys as girls. A boy or 
girl of each company, who were older, cleverer, 
or had some other preeminence above the rest, 



IQO The Picturesque Hudson 

were called the heads of the company, and as 
such were obeyed by the others. The children 
of different ages in the same family, belonged 
to different companies. Each company, at a 
certain time of the year, went in a body to the 
hill to gather berries. It was a sort of annual 
festival. Every company had a uniform for 
this purpose; that is to say, very pretty light 
baskets made by the Indians, with lids and 
handles, and were adorned with various colors. 
One company would never allow the least degree 
of taste to the other in this instance, and was 
sure to vent its whole stock of spleen in decrying 
the rival baskets. Nor would they ever admit 
that the rival company gathered near so much 
fruit as they did. 

"The girls, from the example of their mothers 
rather than any compulsion, very early became 
notably industrious, being constantly employed 
in knitting stockings, and making clothes for 
the family and slaves. This was the more neces- 
sary as all articles of clothing were extremely 
dear. 

''The children returned the fondness of their 
parents with such tender affection that they 
rarely wounded their feelings by neglect or rude 
answers. Yet the boys were often wilful and 



At the Head of Navigation 191 

giddy, the girls being sooner tamed and domes- 
ticated. These youths were apt, whenever 
they could carry a gun (which they did at a 
very early period) to follow some favorite negro 
to the woods, and while he was employed in 
felling trees, to range the whole day in search 
of game, to the neglect of all intellectual im- 
provement. 

"Occasionally eight or ten of one company, 
or related to each other, young men and maidens, 
would set out together in a canoe on a kind of 
rural excursion. Yet so fixed were their habits 
of industry that they never failed to carry their 
workbaskets with them. They steered a 
devious course of four, five or perhaps more 
miles, till they arrived at some of the beautiful 
islands with which this fine river abounded, or 
at some sequestered spot on its banks, where 
delicious wild fruits, or conveniences for fishing 
afforded some attraction. They generally 
arrived by nine or ten o'clock, having set out 
in the cool and early hour of sunrise. A basket 
with tea, sugar and the other usual provisions 
for breakfast, a little rum and fruit for making 
weak punch, and now and then some pastry, 
were the sole provisions; for the great affair was 
to depend on the exertions of the boys in pro- 



192 The Picturesque Hudson 

curing fish, wild ducks, etc., for their dinner. 
With their axes they cleared so much super- 
fluous shrubbery as left a semi-circular opening, 
above which they bent and twined the boughs 
so as to form a pleasant bower, while the girls 
gathered dry branches, which one of the youths 
set on fire v/ith gunpowder, and the breakfast 
occupied an hour or two. The young men then 
set out to fish, or perhaps to shoot birds, and the 
maidens sat down to their work, singing and 
conversing with ease and gayety. 

*' After the sultry hours had been thus em- 
ployed, the boys brought their tribute from 
the river or the wood, and a rural meal was 
prepared by their fair companions, among 
whom were generally their sisters and the chosen 
of their hearts. After dinner they all went to 
gather wild strawberries, or whatever other 
fruit was in season; for it was accounted a 
reproach to come home empty handed. When 
weary of this amusement, they either drank tea 
in their bower, or returning landed at some 
friend's on the way, to partake of that 
refreshment. 

'Tn winter the river, frozen to a great depth, 
formed the principal road through the country, 
and was the scene of skating and sledge races. 




^-.*■.^■ ^^^ 






A glimpse of canal boat life 



At the Head of Navigation 193 

The great street of the town, as has been men- 
tioned, sloped down from the hill on which the 
fort stood, toward the river. Between the 
buildings was an unpaved carriage road. 
Every boy and youth in town, from eight to 
eighteen had a little low sledge with a rope by 
which one could drag it by hand. On this 
one or two at most could sit; and the sloping 
road being made as smooth as glass by sliders' 
sledges, etc., perhaps a hundred at once set 
out in succession from the top of the street, each 
seated on his little sledge, with the rope in his 
hand. He pushed it ojff with a little stick, as 
one would launch a boat, and then with the 
most astonishing velocity the little machine 
glided past. What could be so peculiarly de- 
lightful in this rapid descent, I could never 
discover — yet in a more retired place, and on a 
smaller scale, I have tried the amusement — but 
to a young Albanian, sleighing, as he called it, 
was one of the first joys of life, though attended 
with the necessity of dragging his sledge to the 
top of the declivity every time he renewed his 
flight. In managing this little machine some 
dexterity was necessary. An unskilful phaeton 
was sure to fall. The vehicle was so low, that 
a fall was attended with little danger, yet with 



194 The Picturesque Hudson 

much disgrace; for a universal laugh from all 
sides assailed the fallen charioteer. This 
laugh was from a very full chorus; for the con- 
stant succession of the train, where everyone 
had a brother, lover or kinsman, brought all 
the young people in town to the porticos, where 
they used to sit wrapped in furs till ten or eleven 
at night, engrossed by the delectable spectacle. 
"The young men now and then spent a 
convivial evening together, where, either to 
lessen the expense of the supper, or from the 
love of what they styled frolic, they never failed 
to steal a roasting pig or a fat turkey for this 
festive occasion. Swine and turkeys were 
reared in great numbers by all the town inhabi- 
tants. They had an appropriate place for them 
at the lower end of the garden where they 
locked them up. It is observable that these 
animals were the only things locked up about 
the house, for nothing else ran the least risk 
of being stolen. The dexterity of the theft 
consisted in climbing over very high walls, 
watching to steal in when the negroes went to 
feed the horse or cow, or making a clandestine 
entrance at some window or aperture. Break- 
ing doors was quite out of rule, and rarely ever 
resorted to. These exploits were always per- 



At the Head of Navigation 195 

formed in the darkest nights. If the owner 
heard a noise in his stables, he usually ran down 
with a cudgel, and laid it without mercy on any 
culprit he could overtake. This was either 
dexterously avoided or patiently borne. To 
plunder a man and afterward offer him personal 
injury was accounted scandalous. 

''Marriage w^as followed by two dreadful 
privations: a married man could not fly down 
the street on a little sledge; nor join a party 
of pig stealers, without outraging decorum. If 
any of their confederates married very young 
and were in circumstances to begin house- 
keeping, they were sure of an early visit of this 
nature from their old companions. It was 
thought a great act of gallantry to overtake and 
chastise the robbers. I recollect an instance of 
one young married man who had not long 
attained to that dignity. His turkeys screamed 
violently one night, he ran down, overtook the 
aggressors, but finding they were his old asso- 
ciates, he could not resist the force of habit, 
joined the rest, and shared his own turkey at 
the tavern. 

"There were two inns in the town, the mas- 
ters'of which were 'honorable men;' yet these 
pigs and turkeys were always received and 



196 The Picturesque Hudson 

dressed without questioning whence they came. 
In one instance a young party had in this 
manner provided a pig, and ordered it to be 
roasted at the King's Arms. Another party 
attacked the same place whence this booty was 
taken, but found it aheady rifled. This party 
was headed by an idle, mischievous young man, 
who, well guessing how the stolen roasting 
pig was disposed of, he ordered his friends to 
adjourn to the rival tavern, and went himself 
to the King's Arms. Inquiring in the kitchen, 
where a pig was roasting, he soon arrived at 
certainty. Then taking an opportunity when 
there was no one in the kitchen, he cut the string 
by which the pig was suspended, laid it in the 
dripping-pan, and through the quiet and dark 
streets of that sober city, carried it safely to 
the other tavern, where, after finishing the 
roasting, he and his companions prepared to 
regale themselves. 

"Meantime the pig was missed at the King's 
Arms; and it was immediately concluded who 
was the author of the trick. A new strategem 
was devised^to outwit this stealer of the stolen. 
An adventurous youth of the despoiled party 
laid down a parcel of shavings opposite the 



At the Head of Navigation 197 

other tavern, and setting them in a blaze, 
cried 'Fire!' 

"Everyone rushed out of the house just as 
supper had been served. The dexterous pur- 
veyor who had occasioned the disturbance 
crept in, snatched up the dish with the pig in 
it, went out again by the back door, and feasted 
his companions with the recovered spoils." 

The country above Albany is threaded with 
canals — the most graceful and serene of high- 
ways, always going around the hills and skirting 
the slopes in gentle curves, never boisterous by 
reason of floods or wind, and maintaining 
themselves just brimming full whether the 
weather is wet or dry. On one side is the tow- 
path where the draught creatures toil along, 
several of them hitched tandem. A long rope 
trails behind attached to the blunt-nosed craft 
that moves slowly forward in the middle of 
the channel, scarcely causing a ripple. 

The old men with whom I talked along the 
course of the canals, did not take a very cheerful 
view of business on these waterways. They 
said it was dropping off every year, and the 
appearance of the canal boats seemed to support 
the assertion. Their battered dilapidation 
made it evident that they not only fared hardly 



198 The Picturesque Hudson 

but were neglected, and that this sort of navi- 
gation was on the decHne. 

The chief outlet of the Erie Canal into the 
Hudson is opposite Troy. Here is a series of 
locks, and the boats go up and down this flight 
of water stairs with surprising ease and celerity. 
Troy, on the other bank, lines the waterside 
with great mills, behind which the city rises to 
a high, tree-embowered hill where several spires 
thrust through the foliage. 

A few miles farther north the Hudson receives 
the waters of its chief tributary, the Mohawk. 
On the southern bank of the latter stream is the 
busy manufacturing town of Cohoes, and at 
the outskirts of the village the river comes 
tumbling over some high ragged ledges. The 
roar of the water dashing itself into foam in its 
tumultuous fall thrills all the region. From the 
summit of the lofty canyon wall below the fail 
the view of the water's white leap and of the 
tree-fringed river coming from the green country 
beyond is superb. 




~^ 



b^ 



XIV 

FROM SARATOGA TO THE SOURCE 

THE Hudson above tidewater is a lovable 
pastoral stream, still having considerable 
breadth and volume of water. In places it is 
deep and placid, and again flows in swift, 
shallow rifts, filling the air with clamor as it 
hurries along over the stones. Up here where 
the river is not given to loitering and playing 
see-saw with the tides, its youthful vigor is 
put to work. Every now and then there is 
a dam, and the stream turns many a mill- 
wheel, and in some instances generates electric 
power for varied uses. Along shore, on either 
side, is much pleasant, thrifty-looking farming 
country, until the out-lying foothills of the 
Adirondacks are reached. 

This was a favorite hunting ground of the 
Indians in the old days, and when they gathered 
about their evening campfires, they Hked to tell 
stories of adventure in the district, some ot 
which were founded on fact, and others wholly 



200 The Picturesque Hudson 

mythical. One of the most interesting of the 
legends that have been preserved is the fol- 
lowing: 

"Late one autumn, w^hen the leaves had nearly 
all fallen and the snow-flakes were beginning to 
whiten the brown grass of the wild meadows, a 
young Mohawk brave lost his way somewhere 
in the vicinity of the modern Saratoga. In vain 
he wandered day after day, and he recalled 
with dread the belief of his tribe that a lost 
person is led by some evil spirit round and 
round in an ever-narrowing circle at whose 
center is death. Finally, when almost starved, 
and in despair, a large gray owl, seemingly 
emboldened by the gathering shades of the night 
which was near, flew across his path on noiseless 
wings and alighted on a low limb of a storm- 
blasted hemlock. Then, turning its big staring 
eyes on the sufi^erer it said derisively, 'To 
whoo! to whoo! It is I who have bound thee 
in my spell. It is I who have wound thee round 
and round the charmed circle. It is I who, 
with my wife and children in yonder hollow 
tree, will fatten oflp thy flesh. To whoo! To 
whoo! It is time for thee to die! To whoo! 
To whoo!' 



From Saratoga to the Source 201 

"But the youthful Mohawk, summoning his 
remaining strength raised his bow with tremb- 
ling arm and let fly an arrow which brought the 
monster fluttering lifeless to the ground. While 
the Indian, exhausted by his effort, leaned 
against a tree looking at the dead bird there 
flew forth from Its body a beautiful white dove. 
Immediately the lowering clouds which had 
covered the sky broke away and the full round 
moon rose serenely In the east. The dove 
hovered before the young hunter as If mvitmg 
him to follow It. He heeded Its apparent 
intentions and It fluttered along before him till 
It led him to safety." 

Saratoga was a resort of the Indians long 
before the whites came to this country, and the 
peculiar virtues of Its springs were celebrated 
far and wide. One spring, as it originally 
existed, had built for itself a curb about four 
feet high, and was spoken of by the Indians 
as the ''High Rock" or "Great Medicine 
Spring." In 1767, as a mark of special friend- 
ship, they revealed the spring to Sir William 
Johnson of the Mohawk Valley. He had been 
wounded at the battle of Lake George, twelve 
years before, and was subject to recurring at- 
tacks of illness, due to that injury. The Mo- 



202 The Picturesque Hudson 

hawks, who held him in greater esteem than they 
ever felt for any other white man, carried him 
through the forest to the "High Rock Spring," 
and laid him in the healing pool with solemn 
ceremonies. "The water has almost effected 
my cure," he wrote afterward. Indeed, he came 
to the spring on a litter carried by his Mohawk 
friends, but was so far restored that he accom- 
plished part of his return journey to Schenectady 
on foot. 

In 1783 General Schuyler made a road through 
the woods to the spring from his home on the 
Hudson a few miles to the east, and with his 
family camped beside the medicinal waters 
for several weeks. That same year. General 
Washington, while making a tour through the 
northern part of the state visited the spring in 
company with Alexander Hamilton. The 
efficacy of the water soon became "much 
celebrated as well as the curious round and 
hollow rock from which it flowed." The 
country between the Hudson and Saratoga, as 
described by a member of a party that visited 
the springs in 1789, "was very uninviting and 
almost uninhabited. The road lay through a 
forest and was formed of logs. We travelled 
till the last light had disappeared. At length 




Saratoga s vernal bunness center 



From Saratoga to the Source 203 

we heard the barking of a dog and found our 
way to a I02: house, containing but one room 
and destitute of everything except hospitable 
inhabitants. There vras no lamp or candles, 
light being supplied by pine knots stuck in 
crevices in the walls. The conversation of the 
family proved that wild beasts were very numer- 
ous and bold in the surrounding forests, and that 
they sometimes, when hungry, approached 
the house. 

'*On reaching the springs at Saratoga we 
found but three habitations, and those poor 
log houses near the Round Rock. This was 
the only spring then visited. The log cabins 
were full of strangers and we found it almost 
impossible to obtain accomodations even tor 
two nishts. The neighborhood of the sprmg, 
like all the country we had seen for many miles, 
was a perfect forest." 

Yet within a few decades Saratoga Springs 
became one of the greatest watering places 
on earth, having all the charm that wealth 
and fashion could confer added to its natural 
attractions. Those who have lodged in its 
great hostelries and drank of its waters, no 
doubt include a very large proportion of the 
famous people of the last century. In ante- 



204 The Picturesque Hudson 

bellum days Saratoga was the favorite resort 
of rich Southerners, and this fact accounts for 
some of its pecuHar customs and attractions. 
The permanent population of the town is about 
twelve thousand, but at the height of the summer 
season there are often in the place two or 
three times that number. About thirty different 
springs exist, none of them, however, in a state 
of nature, but each sheltered by a more or less 
elaborate building. They are all strongly 
impregnated with carbonic acid gas, but present 
considerable variation otherwise. Most of them 
are declared to be pleasant to drink, though 
this claim is not made for those having the 
greatest medicinal reputation; for a nauseous 
taste is very apt to inspire faith in such matters. 
The waters are considered especially beneficial 
to the stomach and liver, and in cases of rheu- 
matism, calculus and similar disorders. 

In 1 87 1 while drilling in the solid rock a 
vein of limestone was struck at a depth of one 
hundred and forty feet from which the water 
immediately spouted to the surface and thirty 
feet into the air from an inch nozzle. Many of 
the other springs were very vigorous in their 
flow, but in recent years they have dwindled, 
the spouters have ceased to spout and some have 



From Saratoga to the Source 205 

stopped flowing altogether. This is due to 
operations on the outskirts of the town where 
the carbonic gas has of late been pumped from 
the earth for commercial purposes. The pump- 
ing stations, each with lines of pipe running to 
several scattered wells all worked by the same 
engine, remind one of the oil regions. They 
have hurt Saratoga as a health resort, but the 
state is about to buy them out and the sprmgs 
are to be restored to their pristine virtue. 

At one of the springs I made the acquaintance 
of a man in charge who had both the leisure 
and the inclination to talk. I had wandered 
into the building to try the water and for five 
cents was furnished with an unlimited quantity, 
but I did not relish it enough to want to absorb 
very much. The caretaker urged me to imbibe 
more freely, and when I voiced a preference for 
ordinary water that was pure and tasteless, he 
affirmed that he liked this as well as any water. 
But his nose had a bloom which seemingly 
indicated that his experience as a water drinker 
was limited, and that a more fiery liquid was 
his favorite beverage. According to him the 
famous springs were not the chief source of 
Saratoga's past prosperity. The great attrac- 
tion was gambling at its race track. Gambling 



2o6 The Picturesque Hudson 

in the state had, however, recently been out- 
lawed, largely through the efforts of Governor 
Hughes, **and now," said my acquaintance, 
*'this town is on the bum. We shall have races 
just as in the past, but people don't want to 
see a horse race. They come here for the 
betting. I don't gamble myself; but it is 
gambling on horse races that have made Sara- 
toga. We want the sporting element, and that 
went elsewhere when the Governor shut off 
betting. We used to make enough in five 
weeks to carry us through the rest of the year; 
but last season v/as a bad one, I hx"d to draw 
on my savings, and trade was so poor the mer- 
chants were all hard up. There wasn't half of 
them in such shape they could go to the banks 
and borrow any money. The farmers are 
hit, too. They come in with their vegetables 
and things, and the people they usually sell to 
say, *No, we don't want any. We haven't 
got the money to pay for 'em.' It's a shame. 
I don't care what the ministers say. I'm a 
Christian, but they can talk religion all they 
blame please; they can't dictate to me in a 
matter that touches my pocket. I ain't got 
no use for the Governor either. I've always 
been a Republican, but Hughes don't get my 



From Saratoga to the Source 207 

vote. Since he signed that anti-gambhng 
bill there's lots of us in this county who belong to 
his party and yet are doing all we can to kill him 
when it comes to an election. He may be all 
right, but he ain't all right for Saratoga." 

It did not seem to me that my informant was 
very much of an ornament to the Christianity 
he professed, or that he was an asset the Repub- 
lican party would be likely to boast of very 
loudly. If the town has fattened on the vices 
of its visitors, the sooner it seeks, either of its 
own free will or by compulsion, some new basis 
of prosperity, the better. 

The place has a distinct individuality and its 
principal street, shaded by fine elms for a 
distance of three miles, and kept in perfect 
order, is one of the most beautiful in the United 
States. This thoroughfare retains its vernal 
character in the business as well as the residence 
section. Hotels abound in the town, and many of 
these are very large and were palatial in their day, 
but look tawdry now in their ornate type of 
architecture. Still, in spite of their pretentions, 
they have a flavor of the past that is not un- 
pleasing. 

The region is historically one of the most 
notable in America, and the battle of Saratoga, 



2o8 The Picturesque Hudson 

which led to the surrender of Burgoyne, is 
numbered among the "fifteen decisive battles 
of the v/orld." Burgoyne started from Canada 
with the expectation of uniting his forces with 
an army that was to ascend the Hudson from 
New York; but in 1777 the roads of northern 
and central New York were few and bad. Ex- 
cept in the immediate vicinity of Albany and 
Saratoga, the country was covered with the 
primeval forest, through which only the trapper 
and the Indian could make their way with 
speed. Here it was that Burgoyne came to 
grief. His advance from Canada up Lake 
Champlain and his capture of Fort Ticonderoga 
had been easily accomplished, and there was 
rejoicing in England and consternation in 
America. The patriot army was at Fort Ed- 
ward, only twenty miles from the head of the 
lake, and it would apparently be an easy prey 
to the victorious British; but Schuyler, its com- 
mander, had been industriously at work with 
axe and crowbar, and the pioneer roads, bad 
at their best, were obstructed every few steps 
by the huge trunks and tangled branches of 
trees that had been felled across them. The 
bridges, too, were all destroyed, and Burgoyne 
could only push forward about a mile a day. 



» 1 



.r' 




The site of Burgoyne's Surrender 



From Saratoga to the Source 209 

When he at last arrived at Fort Edward, the 
Americans had fallen back to Stillwater on the 
west bank of the river and were about as far 
away as they had been before. Meanwhile 
the militia of New York and New England were 
beating to arms and Schuyler's force was con- 
stantly growing by motley additions from every 
direction, each soldier having on the clothes he 
wore in the fields, the church or the tavern. 

Burgoyne was expecting much help from the 
loyalist inhabitants of the region he was invad- 
ing; but in this he was disappointed. The 
people withdrew as he advanced driving their 
cattle before them. The support that he might 
possibly have had under other circumstances 
was largely alienated by his employment of 
Indian auxiliaries. To be sure, he had ex- 
plained to his savage allies that the slaughter 
of aged men, and of women and children and 
unresisting prisoners was absolutely forbidden, 
and that on no account were scalps to be taken 
from wounded or dying men; but these injunc- 
tions had slight effect. One sad tragedy for 
which the Indians were responsible and which 
was long treasured in song and story roused the 
public wrath against the invaders, far and wide. 
Jane McCrea, the beautiful daughter of a New 



2IO The Picturesque Hudson 

Jersey clergyman, was at Fort Edward visiting 
her friend, Mrs. McNeil. One morning a 
party of Indians burst into the house and carried 
away the two ladies. Some American soldiers 
pursued the savages who scattered and escaped. 
They presently came into the British camp 
with only Mrs. McNeil, but the next day a 
famous sachem, known as the Wyandot Panther, 
appeared with a scalp of long, silky, black 
tresses. It was Jane McCrea's. A search was 
made, and the body of the girl was found near 
a spring in the forest pierced by three bullet 
wounds. How she came to her death was never 
known, but a version of the story, widely 
accepted at the time ran in this wise: 

She was betrothed to David Jones, a loyalist, 
who was serving as lieutenant in Burgoyne's 
army. Her lover sent a letter to her by a party 
of Indians entreating her to come to the British 
camp where they would be married. Before 
these Indians reached the McNeil house another 
company of savages under the Wyandot Panther 
raided it and carried off Jane and Mrs. McNeil. 
Soon afterward the two parties met near the 
spring, and the emissaries of David Jones 
insisted on taking Jane with them. High words 




^ 

^ 



G 



From Saratoga to the Source 211 

ensued until the Panther, in a rage, drew his 
pistol and shot the girl dead. 

Burgoyne was a man of quick and tender 
sympathy, and the fate of the young lady 
grieved him greatly. He made the rule that 
thereafter no party of Indians should be al- 
lowed to go marauding save under the lead of 
some British officer, who might watch and re- 
strain them. The savages showed their dis- 
affection at once. They grunted and growled 
for two or three days, and then with hoarse yells 
and hoots, the whole five hundred scampered 
off to the Adirondack wilderness. This deser- 
tion deprived the invaders of valuable scouts 
and guides, and by no means effaced the desire 
for vengeance which their deeds had aroused 
among the American yeomanry for a hundred 
miles round about. 

At length Burgoyne's army began to suffer 
for lack of food, and there were not horses 
enough to drag their cannon and carry the 
provision bags. Something must be done, and 
Burgoyne got his force over to the west side of 
the Hudson on a bridge of boats. Then he 
moved forward to attack the Americans who 
had taken up a strong position on Bemis Heights. 
General Gates was now the patriot commander, 



212 The Picturesque Hudson 

having superseded the far abler Schuyler. 
American scouts concealed in the upper foliage 
of the tall trees that grew on the hillsides were 
early aware of the British movements, and the 
fiery Arnold begged to be allowed to go forth 
and assail the enemy. When Gates gave re- 
luctant consent, Arnold with three thousand 
men fell on Burgoyne's advance at Freeman's 
Farm. He was outnumbered and sent for 
reinforcem.ents, but these were refused. Never- 
theless he held his own in a desperate fight for 
two hours until darkness put an end to the 
struggle; and all this while the incompetent 
Gates kept idle on Bemis Heights eleven thous- 
and men, nor did he on the next day follow up 
the advantage Arnold had gained. Nothing 
more was done for nearly three weeks, and 
Gates in the despatches sent to Congress took 
to himself all the credit of this preliminary 
encounter, and did not even mention Arnold's 
name. 

Meanwhile Burgoyne was hoping for relief 
from Sir Henry Clinton who was to bring an 
army up the Hudson. But conditions were 
fast becoming desperate, and he again at- 
tempted to sweep aside his foes. An advance 
column failed in its attack, lost its cannon, and 



From Saratoga to the Source 213 

became disordered. At this moment Arnold, 
who had been watching from the heights, 
sprang on his horse and galloped to the scene 
of action. Gates sent Major Armstrong to 
stop him, exclaiming, ''Call back that fellow, or 
he will be doing something rash!" 

But Arnold was too swift for the pursuing 
messenger. The men greeted their beloved 
commander with deafening hurrahs and he 
directed them against the retreating column 
of the enemy, and when that column had been 
crushed they assailed other vulnerable points 
of the invader's army. The American victory, 
complete and decisive, had been practically 
won when a wounded German soldier lying on 
the ground took aim at Arnold. The bullet 
passed through the general's left leg and slew 
his horse. As he fell, one of his men rushed 
toward the wounded soldier, and would have 
bayonetted him had not Arnold hastily ordered 
his would-be avenger to desist. So the poor 
soldier was saved, and it has been well said that 
"this was the hour when Benedict Arnold 
should have died." 

On the morrow Burgoyne retreated north- 
ward a few miles with his wrecked army, and 
Gates, who now outnum.bered him three to one. 



214 The Picturesque Hudson 

closed in, on' him. A brisk cannonade was 
opened on the beaten invaders, and they were 
harassed with the galling lire of the sharp- 
shooters. Drinking water became scant, and 
every man that started with a bucket for the 
river was shot dead. So the wife of a soldier 
courageously volunteered to go; and she 
brought water again and again, for the Ameri- 
cans would not fire at a woman. 

The end came on October seventeenth, when 
Burgoyne surrendered. It was agreed that the 
captured arm.y should be sent home, but Congress, 
with inexcusable lack of honor, did not keep 
the pledge, and the main body of the troops 
were after a time transferred to Virginia. They 
were not guarded very rigorously, and some 
were allowed to escape, and the rest scattered 
and for the most part eventually became Ameri- 
can citizens. 

The place of Burgoyne's surrender is marked 
by a tall granite shaft. It is on a hillcrest that 
overlooks a long steep slope, descending to the 
river in the hollow. Beyond the stream are 
lines of undulating hills that melt gradually into 
ridges of hazy blue on the horizon. The river 
here is very modest and mild. You can toss a 
stone across it, and it slumbers between banks 







t*. 



"^ 



*^<) 



-a: 



From Saratoga to the Source 215 

where the great trees with their wide-spreading 
branches lean caressingly over it. 

For many miles above it has as a rule the 
same lazy tree-embowered character. At length 
we come to Fort Edward. The fort, which was 
of considerable importance in the French and 
Indian wars, has long ago disappeared. Within 
the confines of the present village Jane McCrea 
met her lamented death, and Fort Edward was the 
scene of the well-known exploit of Israel Putnam, 
who stood on the roof of the powder magazine 
and saved it after a strenuous single-handed 
fight with the fire that consumed the structure 
next to it. 

A few miles more and we arrive at Glen's 
Falls. Here is a thriving modern manufacturing 
town. The center of interest for the stranger is 
not, however, the substantial business section, 
or the great mills, but a rocky islet in the middle 
of the river just below where the stream begins 
a chaotic tumble of seventy-two feet down a 
tangle of steep ledges. On this spot occurred 
some of the most thrilling incidents in one of 
the world-famous romances of J. Fenimore 
Cooper — *'The Last of the Mohicans." Unfor- 
tunately an ugly iron bridge runs directly across 
the island, which supports one of the bridge piers. 



2i6 The Picturesque Hudson 

It would seem that this disfigurement might 
have been avoided. Even if the attraction of the 
island is largely one of sentiment, the interest 
it arouses has a real value to the town and to 
the country at large. The island is merely a 
bare rock swept by the floods, but on its higher 
portion are some clumps of bushes and a little 
grass. At one point is a small cave opening 
back into the rock, and this is the supposed 
retreat of Hawkeye and his companions when 
pursued by the savages. 

The name of the falls is altogether lacking in 
inspiration. By the Indians this leap of the 
Hudson over the rugged rocks was called 
Che-pon-tuc — ''a hard place to get around.** 
When the whites began to settle in the region 
the falls became the property of a man named 
Wing and were known at Wing's Falls. That 
they have not come down to posterity so desig- 
nated is due to the fact that he sold the right to 
the name to a Mr. Glen for the price of a 
dinner at the tavern. The latter, after he had 
paid for the repast, posted all the roads around 
with handbills announcing the change in name. 

At Glen's Falls it is natural to turn aside 
from the river to visit Lake George. The lake 
is a beautiful, irregular sheet of water, com- 



From Saratoga to the Source 217 

paratively narrow, but more than thirty miles 
long, with many a wooded guardian height rising 
from its borders. Its attractiveness is much 
increased by its numerous islands. These are 
said to be the same in number as the days of the 
year, and on leap years an extra one can be 
found to match the extra day. At the southern 
end the old embankments of Fort William 
Henry can still be traced, and other forts of the 
Colonial period in the region survive in similar 
half-effaced hillocks. 

The most notable battle fought on its shores 
dates back to 1755. An expedition under 
General Johnson, afterward Sir William John- 
son, on its way to attack the French on Lake 
Champlain had encamped at its southern 
extremity among the stumps of newly-felled 
trees. The troops were from the farms and 
brought their own guns. They had no bayonets, 
but carried hatchets in their belts, and by their 
sides were slung powder-horns on which, in 
.their leisure they carved quaint devices with the 
points of their jack-knives. There were twenty- 
two hundred effective men and they were pres- 
ently joined by three hundred Mohawks. As 
to the manners and morals of the army one of 
the officers wrote that nothing was to be heard 



2i8 The Picturesque Hudson 

"among a great part of them but the language 
of hell;" yet it was said that not a chicken had 
been stolen on their march, and they now had 
sermons twice a week, daily prayers and fre- 
quent psalm-singing. 

The French commander, Baron Dieskau, did 
not wait for them to assail him, but made a cir- 
cuit and gained their rear with a force of fifteen 
hundred, most of whom were Canadians and 
Indians. Late on the night of September seventh 
tidings of this movement reached Johnson, and 
at sunrise a thousand men were detailed to 
reconnoitre, and two hundred Mohawk warriors 
went with them. An hour elapsed, when from 
the distance was heard a sudden explosion of 
musketry. In the thick woods bordering the 
narrow, newly-cut road which led southward 
from Lake George, the French had concealed 
themselves, and the English were first apprised 
of their danger, by an appalling shout which 
rose from both sides of them and was followed 
by a storm of bullets. The road was soon strewn 
with dead and wounded soldiers, and the 
English gave way. Every man was a woods- 
man and a hunter, and the greater part of them 
spread through the forest fighting stubbornly 
as they retreated, and shooting from behind 










"^ 



<3 



Si 



From Saratoga to the Source 219 

every tree or bush that could afford a cover. 
The Canadians and Indians and French 
reguhirs pressed them closely, and far and wide 
through the forest rang shout and shriek and 
the deadly rattle of guns. 

Warned by the approaching sound of the 
conflict, the soldiers in the camp made a sort 
of barricade along its front, partly of w^agons, 
and partly of inverted bateaux, but chiefly of 
the trunks of trees hastily hev^n down in the 
neighboring forest and laid end to end in a 
single row. The defeated party began to come 
in; first scared fugitives, then gangs of men 
bringing the v/ounded, and at last the main 
detachment. 

A portion of the troops were detailed to guard 
the flanks of the camp and the rest stood just 
back of the wagons or lay flat behind the logs 
and bateaux. They were hardly at their posts 
when they saw ranks of soldiers moving down 
the road, and heard a terrific burst of war- 
whoops. Some of the men grew uneasy; but 
the chief officers, sword in hand, threatened 
instant death to any who should stir from their 
posts. If Dieskau could have made an assault 
then there would have been little doubt of his 
success. But, except for the regulars, the 



220 The Picturesque Hudson 

members of his force were beyond his control 
and had scattered through the woods and 
swamps, shouting and firing from behind trees. 
The fight continued from noon until after four 
o'clock, when the French showed signs of 
wavering. At this, with a general shout, the 
English broke from their camp and rushed on 
their enemies, striking them down or putting 
them to frightened flight through the woods. 

Some time previous, several hundred of the 
Canadians and Indians had left the field and 
returned to the scene of the morning fight to 
plunder and scalp the dead. They were resting 
themselves, and night had begun to gloom the 
forest, when a scouting party from Fort Edward 
sent a volley of bullets among them. The 
assailants were greatly outnumbered, but they 
soon had totally routed and dispersed the 
enemy. Near where this combat occurred is a 
pond half overgrown by weeds and water lilies 
and darkened by the surrounding forest, be- 
neath whose stagnant waters the bodies of those 
slain are said to lie buried deep in mud and slime. 

Baron Dieskau had been wounded and taken 
prisoner. He was carried to the tent of General 
Johnson, and scarcely had his wounds been 
dressed when several of the Mohawks came in, 



From Saratoga to the Source 221 

furious at their losses. There was a long and 
angry dispute between them and Johnson in 
their own language, after which they went out 
very sullenly. Dieskau asked what they wanted. 
*' They wanted to burn you, eat you, and smoke 
you in their pipes, in revenge for three or four 
of their chiefs that were killed," replied John- 
son. "But never fear. You shall be safe with 
me, or else they shall kill us both." 

As soon as his wounds would permit Dieskau 
was carried on a litter, strongly escorted, to Fort 
Edward, and from there went on to New York, 
and later was sent to England. 

Around Lake George the fighting continued 
for years, and the vicinity was the scene of 
ceaseless ambuscades and forest skirmishmg. 
Fort William Henry had been built at the south- 
ern end of Lake George close to the edge of 
the water, and in August, 1757, Montcalm, 
with a force of eight thousand men, about 
one-fourth of whom were Indians, laid siege 
to it. The fort was formed by embankments 
of gravel surmounted by a rampart of heavy 
logs, and east of it, on a low rocky hill, beyond 
a marsh, was an entrenched camp. All around 
and far up the slopes of the western mountain, 
the forest had been cut down and burned and 



222 The Picturesque Hudson 

the ground was cumbered with blackened 
stumps and charred trunks and branches of 
fallen trees. The garrison, which numbered a 
little more than two thousand, made a brave 
defence, but in a few days their position became 
deplorable. More than three hundred of them 
had been killed and wounded, and small-pox 
was raging in the fort. There was nothing to 
do but capitulate and it was agreed that they 
should march out with the honors of war and 
be escorted the day following by a guard of 
French troops to Fort Edv/ard. No sooner 
did the garrison leave the fort than a crowd of 
Indians clambered through the embrasures in 
search of rum and plunder; and all the sick 
men unable to leave their beds were Instantly 
butchered. 

The English had collected in the entrenched 
camp which had been included in the surrender. 
Presently the Indians resorted thither, and 
their intrusive insolence made the women and 
children half crazy with fright. There was 
much disorder, and Montcalm hurried to the 
camp and did his utmost to restore tranquility. 
At last night came, and in the morning the Eng- 
lish, In their haste to be gone, got together at 
daybreak. The Indians had been prowling 



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From Saratoga to the Source 223 

about the outskirts of the camp since midnight, 
and they were now all on the alert, and began 
plundering. They demanded rum, and some 
of the soldiers, afraid to refuse, gave it to them 
from their canteens. After much difficulty 
the column at last got out of the camp and 
began to move along the road toward the forest^ 
Then the Indians abandoned all restraint, and 
snatched caps, coats and weapons from the 
men, tomahawking those who resisted, and 
dragged off shrieking women and children, or 
murdered them on the spot. Into the midst of 
this frightful tumult came Montcalm and other 
French officers, and by promises and threats 
tried to allay the frenzy of the savages. ''Kill 
me, but spare the English who are under my 
protection!" Montcalm exclaimed. 

The English had muskets, but no ammunition, 
and any effective resistance was impossible. 
Many were killed and many more were carried 
away by the Indians, who, the morning after 
the massacre set out for Canada. The rest 
were guarded in the entrenched camp for a 
number of days and then escorted to Fort 
Edward. Meanwhile Fort William Henry had 
been demolished, and the barracks torn down. 
The huge pine logs of the rampart were now 



224 The Picturesque Hudson 

thrown into a heap and set on fire. Then the 
army reembarked, and no living thing was left 
amid the desolation, except the wolves that 
gathered from the mountains to feast on the 
dead. 

In continuing up the Hudson from Glen's Falls 
one finds the stream largely utilized as a high- 
way for floating down logs. These come from 
the mountains in immense numbers every spring, 
and after the main drive is past the shores are 
strewn with numberless stragglers, and many 
more are lodged on rocks in midstream. The 
country grows increasingly rustic, and the vil- 
lages usually consist of a hotel, a few wooden 
stores, and a group of houses where taking 
summer boarders is the main business. ' The 
railroad ends at North Creek, and if you would 
go farther and explore the woods and mountains, 
the lakes and wild streams of the Adirondacks, 
you must continue by stage or on foot. There 
are numerous teams on the road and their 
occupants are a friendly people, always with a 
nod and often a companionable greeting for 
you, even though you are a total stranger. 
Most of the houses outside of the villages are 
small and barren, and there is an occasional 
one of logs with a genuine pioneer aspect. 



From Saratoga to the Source 225 

They are often in the midst of a landscape that 
has great charm in its mighty hills and river 
vistas, but the buildings themselves are usually 
unprepossessing, and uncaressed by Nature's 
greenery. 

The Hudson rises in the recesses of the moun- 
tains where the source of its chief branch is a 
little lake poetically called "The Tear of the 
Clouds," over four thousand feet above the 
tide. This is the loftiest body of w^ater in the 
dtatc from which a stream flows continuously. 
It is eighty yards long by about thirty wide, 
very shallow, with a bottom of soft black mud 
that makes its clear water look like ink. 
Dwarfed spruces abound along the shores, 
and here and there rounded boulders lift them- 
selves above the surface. A climb of one thous- 
and feet more takes one to the summit of the 
proudest height in the Adirondacks, Mount 
Marcy, which the Indians called Jahawnus — the 
cloud-piercer. From the Tear of the Clouds 
flows Feldspar Brook through a narrow moun- 
tain gorge. This, after gathering volume from 
tributary streams, takes the name of Opalescent 
River, and still later becomes the East Branch 
of the Hudson. 



226 The Picturesque Hudson 

Nature has covered the high places at the 
headwaters of the river vv^ith a dense growth of 
evergreens, whose roots hold the forest mold 
where it has slowly gathered in the passing 
centuries. This forest mold, composed largely 
of decayed leaves and cones, branches and 
fallen tree trunks, is generally called ** spruce- 
duff," because among the spruces the deposit 
is deepest. Together with the rank moss that 
grows so abundantly in the shade, it is equal 
to a sponge for absorbing water and is an 
almost perfect medium for regulating the flow 
of precipitated moisture. Cut away the trees 
and expose the mold to the sun, and it soon dies 
and becomes fit food for fire. Only a careless 
spark is needed, and then the fire sweeps the 
surface and smoulders in the fibrous mold 
until it is entirely consumed. After that the 
first storm carries away the ashes, leaving only 
the naked rock, and the work of a thousand 
years has been undone. 

Just how much harm this sort of devastation 
does to the watershed of the Hudson as a 
whole is uncertain, but any damage at the 
headwaters affects to some degree all the rest 
of the valley. It is greatly to be hoped that the 



From Saratoga to the Source 227 

annual fires which sweep over such vast tracts 
of northern woodland will be better curbed in 
the future and that the Hudson will remain for 
unnumbered centuries the same beautiful stream 
it has been in the past. 



AMERICAN HIGHWAYS AND 

BYWAYS SERIES 

By CLIFTON JOHNSON 



Highways and Byways of the Mississippi 
Valley 

Crown %vo, $2.00 net 

"Mr. Clifton Johnson has a faculty all his own for entering easily 
and pleasantly into the hfe of the common people wherever he 
may go. The valley of the Mississippi as he followed it gave him 
many opportunities to study phases of American life whdch be- 
long distinctly in the category of 'highways and byways.' The 
book is eminently readable, while from the pictorial side it has 
the advantage of scores of Mr. Johnson's own photographs." 

— The Outlook. 



Highways and Byways of the South 

$2.00 net 

"Mr. Johnson gives more illuminative descriptions of homely 
details in life tnan any other modern writer." — Town and 
Country. 



Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

$2.00 net 
"A more readable book of travel . . is not often pub- 
lished. . . . As in other volumes of the series, he has de- 
scribed the rurally picturesque and typical and has avoided the 
urbanly conventional and uninteresting."— T^e Dial. 



New England and Its Neighbors 

$2.00 net 
"A story of New England life, literally sprinkled with tales and 
legends of early days, each one accompanied by an illustration 
that Illustrates. They are homely folk about whom Mr. Johnson 
writes, and he writes in a plain and simple style, giving pictures 
of them as they move about pursuing their daily occupations." 

— The Delineator. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 



other Books by Clifton 
Johnson 



Among English Hedgerows 

With an Introduction by Hamilton W, Mabie and over 100 
illustrations. $2.25 net 

"The book deserves to succeed, not only in America, but in 
the country which it so lovingly depicts." — The Spectator, 
London. 

Along French Byways 

Fully Illustrated. $2.25 net 

"Gives a singularly faithful and complete and well-balanced 
idea of the French peasantry and French rural life, manners, and 
customs." — Boston Herald. 

The Isle of the Shamrock 

Fully Illustrated. $2.00 net; Postage, 15 cents 
"A most interesting book, full of lively sketches and 
anecdotes." — London Daily News, 

The Land of Heather 

Fully Illustrated. $2.00 net; Postage, 15 cents 
"Not only Scotchmen, but every student of human nature will 
be pleased with this entertaining book. It describes typical 
people and scenes with much sympathy and appreciation." 

— Brooklyn Standard Union. 



Old -Time Schools and School- Books 

With 234 Illustrations. $2.00 net; Postage, 20 cents 

"A storehouse of dehghtfuUy quaint reprints of texts and 
cuts, and a mine of information concerning educational be- 
ginnings in this country." — The Outlook. 



EDITED BY CLIFTON JOHNSON FOR SCHOOL AND 
HOME READING 

Don Quixote 

With Illustrations by Cruikshank. 75 cents. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York 



By E. V. LUCAS 

A Wanderer in London 

With sixteen illustrations in color by Mr. Nelson Dawson, and 
thirty-six reproductions of great pictures. 

Cloth, Svo, $1.75 net; by mail, $1.87 

"Mr. Lucas describes London in a style that is always enter- 
taining, surprisingly like Andrew Lang's, full of unexpected 
suggestions and points of view, so that one who knows London 
well will hereafter look on it with changed eyes, and one who has 
only a bowing acquaintance will feel that he has suddenly 
become intimate." — The Nation. 

"If you would know London as few of her own inhabitants 
know her— if you would read one of the best books of the current 
season, all that is necessary is a copy of "A Wanderer in 
London." — Evening Post, Chicago. 



A Wanderer in Holland 

With twenty illustrations in color by. Herbert Marshall., besides 
many reproductions of the masterpieces of Dutch Fainters. 

Cloth, Svo, $2.00 net 

"It is not very easy to point out the merits which make this 
volume immeasurably superior to nine-tenths of the books ot 
travel that are offered the public from time to time. Perhaps it 
is to be traced to the fact that Mr. Lucas is an intellectual loiterer, 
rather than a keen-eyed reporter, eager to catch a tram tor the 
next stopping-place. It is also to be found Partially n the fact 
that the author is so much in love with the artistic life of Hol- 
land." — Globe Democrat, St. Louis. 

"Mr E. V. Lucas is an observant and sympathetic traveller, 
and has given us here one of the best handbooks on Holland 
which we have read." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

"Next to travelling oneself is to have a .book of this sort, writ- 
ten by a keenly observant msin."— Chicago Tribune. 

"It is hard to imagine a pleasanter book of its kind."— Courier- 
Journal, Louisville. 



A Wanderer in Paris 

Ready October, 1909 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 



The New New York 

By JOHN C. VAN DYKE, 

Illustrated by Joseph Pennell 

Professor Van Dyke's careful and sympathetic 
study of the city strikes a welcome and a fresh note. 
Vivid, colorful descriptions of the various aspects 
of the new world's capital as it is today are given by 
the author, and these are supplemented by one 
hundred and twenty-six full page illustrations in 
black and white and color by Mr. Joseph Pennell, 
whose etchings are too well known to need comment. 
The insight, humor, sympathy and beauty of the 
book cannot but appeal. 

Now Ready. 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Introduction by EDWARD S. MARTIN. 

Hitherto no one has ever taken the trouble to 
collect in book form the many interesting things 
that have been said in both prose and verse about 
New York. This anthology shows how the city, 
from the yeasty, seething East Side to where Old 
Greenwich grimly holds its own as a "village," and 
from the granite cliffs of lower Broadway to where 
"the serpent of stars" winds round the Morning- 
side Curve has impressed not alone one man, but 
many different types of men. "Old New York" 
as well as "New New York" is here. 

Now Ready. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 



